320 GlAEEOLID^. 



Glareola lactea, Temm. The Small Pratincole. 



Glareola lactea, Temm., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 632; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. 8f E. no. 843. 



The Small Pratincole or Lesser Indian Swallow-Plover breeds on 

 sandbanks throughout the Indus, Ganges, Brahmapootra, Irra- 

 waddy, Nerbudda, and Mahanuddy, and their many affluents, so far 

 as they continue to be broad streams, flowing peacefully when not 

 in flood. To which others (if any) of our Indian river-systems 

 they resort to breed, I do not yet know. Further information on 

 this subject is much to be desired. 



It is alwa3's a social bird, and even in the breeding-season from 

 ten to fifty pairs always keep together. 



Like the Collared Pratincole in Greece and elsewhere in Southern 

 Europe, our Indian bird always breeds in company with various 

 species of Terns ; with these latter it usually chooses a low flat 

 sandbank in the middle of the river, if possible one never visited, 

 and in some part of this, not intermingled with, but usually a little 

 apart from, the Terns, it makes its nest, the whole party of Pra- 

 tincoles laying within a very limited area. Sometimes, but more 

 rarely, the terminal portion of some very long and unfrequented 

 spit of sand is taken possession of, instead of a sandbank island. 



The nests are mere holes in the sand, three inches or so across, 

 and an inch or an inch and a half deep. Where the bank is ab- 

 solutely unfrequented and unvisited, there these holes are scratched 

 in the open without the slightest attempt at concealment ; but 

 where boatmen towing boats are passing from time to time, there 

 the birds generally make their nests at the roots of, and partly 

 concealed by, tufts of grass or tamarisk-bushes. 



The nests are never lined in any way. 



Pour is the full number of eggs ; but three, and even two, are 

 often found much incubated. So long as there are only two or 

 three in the nest, and the birds have not commenced to sit regularly, 

 they do not seem to care whether you rob it or not ; but directly 

 they commence sitting they evince the strongest interest in the 

 matter, and do all they can to entice you away from the eggs. 



In the K"orth-West Provinces I have always taken their eggs in 

 March. They are later, however, in the Punjab, and at Thayetmyo 

 Mr. Gates found them beginning to lay on the 12th April. 1 shall 

 now quote a couple of my old notes in regard to the nidification of 

 this species : — 



" We found a small party of these birds breeding on a low bare 

 sandbank in the Jumna, near Sheregurh (Etawah), on the 12th 

 March. Near it the Skimmer, Large Eiver and Black-bellied 

 Terns also had their nests. Several of the eggs were partly 

 incubated ; the nests in which we found these latter contained 

 each three eggs, but the majority had as yet only one or two eggs 

 each, so that I fancy they had not long been breeding. They did 

 not to me appear at all anxious about their eggs, ran and flew ofi 



