500 STONE CURLEW. 



in graminivorous, is a matter worthy the attention of the enlightened 

 anatomist we have here referred to, since we find that the stomach of 

 those birds which are truly graminivorous, have no more muscular 

 power than that of a carnivorous or piscivorous bird. 



What, then, causes the digestive faculties in the former to be so 

 much more powerful (for these can digest flesh and even bone to a 

 certain degree, as well as grass) than those of the latter, who are inca- 

 pable of decomposing- such, although the dissolution of the hardest 

 bones is affected by the solvent powers of the fluid secretion in the sto- 

 mach of some ? This is daily exemplified in the dog-, who either 

 ejects the grass, medicinally taken into the stomach, or passes it whole 

 and unaltered through the intestinal canal, and yet converts into nou- 

 rishment the most solid bone.* 



STONE CHACKER.— A name for the Wheatear. 



STONECHAT.— A name for the Chick Stone. 



STONE CURLEW (Oedicnemus crepitans, Temminck.) 



Otis Oedicnemus, Lath. Ind. Orn. 2. p. 661. sp. 11. — Charadrius Oedicnemus, 

 Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 689. sp. 10. — Grand Pluvier ou Courtis de Terre, Buff. Ois. 



8. p. 105. t. 7.— Ib. pi. Enl. 919.— Gerard, Tab. elem. 2. p. 173 Lerehin- 



grave Regenpfeifer, Beclist. Tasschenb. Deut. 2. p. 3.17. — 'Grosser Brachvdgel, 

 Naum. Vdg. Deut. t. 9. fig. 13. — Frisch, t. 215. — 11 cran Rivere, Stor. degl. 



Ucc. 5. p. t. 472.— Thick-kneed Bustard, Lath. Syn. 4. p. 806 Stone Curlew, 



Albin, Br. Birds, 1. t. 69.— Br. Zool. 1. No. ] 00 —lb, fol. 127.— White's Hist. 

 Selb. 4to. p. 43. royal 18mo. 51. 52. and 128.— Lewin's Br. Birds, 4. t. 141.— 

 Wale. Syn. 2. t. 163. 



Provincial. — Norfolk Plover. 



The weight of this species is about seventeen ounces ; length eighteen 

 inches ; the bill is almost two inches long", dusky at the point, yellow 

 at the base ; irides and orbits pale yellow ; behind the eye a small space 

 bare of feathers, of a yellowish-green, mostly concealed by the ear 

 coverts ; the feathers on the head, neck, and whole upper parts, dusky 

 down their middle, deeply bordered with pale tawny-brown ; above and 

 beneath the eye is a pale stroke ; a band of the same across the coverts 

 of the wings ; the quills black ; the two first marked with a broad bar 

 of white across each web ; the seventh and eighth slightly tipped with 

 white ; breast and belly yellowish- white, the former marked with longi- 

 tudinal dusky streaks ; the tail consists of twelve feathers deeply tipped 

 with black, except the two middle ones; the three outer are barred 

 with black and white, the others with brown ; legs long, yellow ; toes 

 short ; the outer toe connected to the middle one, as far as the first 

 joint, by a membrane ; claws black. 



This is a migrative species, making its first appearance with us the 

 latter end of April, or beginning of May, when the male is heard to 

 make a very loud shrill note, particularly in the dusk of the evening. 



