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PRATINCOLES, 
The remarkable genus Glareola or Swallow Plovers, 
to be placed nest, continued for some time uncertain 
of its proper station ; but it is evidently intimately 
connected with the last. In many of the Gralla- 
torial birds, we have seen the wings developed to a 
great extent ; but the principal varieties of structure 
are exhibited in the feet and legs, the organs on 
which this order is, in a great measure, dependant 
for seeking after its prey. The tail, comparatively 
of small use to wading birds, has been formed short, 
or verging in some to a rounded or considerably 
wedge-shaped form, but never to a greatly deve- 
loped fork, as in the Fissirostral tribes, and this is 
what has puzzled systematists in looking for a sta- 
tion to place the Pratincoles. In all the other parts, 
the form of the Plovers is more or less kept up. We 
have the bill of the last ; the colouring of the plu- 
mage continues pale rufous or fawn colour beneath, 
and has a narrow collar, representing the pectoral 
and abdominal bands, the upper parts generally 
glossed with a green or bronze reflection ; the feet 
resembling Tringa , at the same time showing those 
of a Fissirostral type ; while the tail, formed on the 
model of the swallows’, is the only exception among 
all the Grallatorial birds. 
Glareola Generic characters . — Bill short, de- 
pressed, and expanded at the base, compressed 
