413 



of the gentlemen of the island who saw it ever observed it in the country before. The one killed 

 near Ormskirk is in the possession of the Right Hon. Lord Stanley." 



Just as the present sheets are going through the press I am enabled to record another recent 

 occurrence of the Pratincole in Great Britain. In a letter to Mr. J. E. Harting (which that 

 gentleman has kindly forwarded to me), dated 10th June, 1874, Mr. E. Hearle Rodd writes as 

 follows : — " I was very glad to have an opportunity yesterday of examining in the flesh a good- 

 plumaged adult specimen of the Pratincole, which was captured at the Lizard, and sent by the 

 Rev. P. V. Robinson to be preserved by Mr. Vingoe. The bird was in fair condition; but in 

 length it exceeds the dimensions given by Yarrell, being at least 10^ inches to the end of the 

 tail, which, by the by, in their extremities are rather inclined to be filamental — certainly more 

 tapering than in Yarrell's figure ; this may account for its excessive length. I have not succeeded 

 in before detecting this curious miscellany of a bird in Cornwall over a period of nearly half 

 a century." 



I do not find it recorded from Sweden, Norway, or Finland ; and in Russia it appears to be 

 less numerous than its near ally, Glareola melanoptera. In Northern Germany it is a rare 

 species ; but, according to Borggreve, it is said to have occurred several times in Silesia, once in 

 Anhalt, and once in Miinsterland. It is recorded from Denmark by Kjserbolling, who says that 

 one single specimen was obtained near Ulfshale-on-Moen on the 18th May, 1831. Several 

 specimens have been captured in Belgium; but I do not find it recorded from Holland. In 

 France it occurs only accidentally in the northern departments, but is common in the southern 

 portions of the country. Mr. Crespon, in his ' Ornithologie du Gard,' says that it arrives in 

 Southern France about the middle of April and leaves again late in August, migrating in small 

 flocks of fifteen to twenty individuals. Professor Barboza du Bocage states that it is common in 

 Portugal ; and in Spain it is, according to Lord Lilford, Colonel Irby, and Mr. Howard Saunders, 

 common. Lord Lilford says, in a letter just received, that it " arrives in Southern Spain in vast 

 numbers about the end of March; and although the great majority remain in the Marisma, 

 individuals are often to be seen close to the town of Seville hawking for insects, sometimes high 

 in the air, sometimes skimming low over the corn-fields and alighting on the patches of fallow 

 ground. I have been often struck by the remarkable similarity in the flight, note, situation 

 of nest, and the eggs of this species to those of some of the Terns, more particularly in the 

 Marisma, where hundreds of this bird and the two species Hydrochelidon hybrida and fissipes 

 may be observed together. The Pratincole has a curious habit of cowering on the grouud with 

 wings extended, particularly when approached by a horse and rider ; this habit has nothing to do 

 with a desire to divert attention from the nest, as I have observed it long before the bird had 

 begun to lay. I was fortunate in obtaining for Mr. Gould in 1869 some recently hatched young 

 of this bird, which run immediately on leaving the egg. About Seville this bird is called 

 Canastera, but in the Coto de Donana is known as Cagazo." Mr. Howard Saunders also (Ibis, 

 1871, p. 385) speaks of it as being "abundant in the ' Marisma,' where it deposits its eggs, 

 never at any great distance from water, but invariably on dry ground. The eggs never exceed 

 three in number, being often but two, which are laid with their axes parallel. On the wing 

 this bird has many of the characteristics of the Terns ; but on the ground its motions are 

 Plover-like ; and the young run immediately on emerging from the shell." Mr. von Homeyer 



