GL AREOLA LACTEA. 
985 
the inhabitants of the town were familiar with them, and informed me that they bred in the sand hills in 
March. In the following October I received some specimens from Mr. J. Williams, of the Ceylon Public- 
Works Department. In October 1874 I met with a large flock frequenting the shores of Kottiar Bay, near 
the mouths of the Mahawelliganga. It is likewise to he found, I believe, in the north of the Jaffna peninsula, 
and was perhaps observed there by Layard, though he did not record it in his notes. When I described the 
bird to him in 1874, during our voyage to the Antipodes, he remarked that he believed he had seen it at 
Pt. Pedro on one or two occasions. I am not aware that it has been seen on the west coast. 
On the mainland this little Pratincole is chiefly found from the Deccan north-eastwards to Bengal, and 
thence ranges into Burmah and Tenasserim. I do not find it recorded from the extreme south, and, in fact, 
Messrs. Davidson and Wenden’s notice of it on the river Bhima, in the Deccan, during the cold season, is 
the most southerly register of its occurrence that I have noticed. Mr. Ball notes it from the Godaveri 
valley, Raipur, and Orissa north of the Mahanadi, also from Sambalpur, north and south of the same river, 
and finally from Lohardugga, Manbhum, and Bardwan. Captain Beavan likewise observed it on the sand 
banks of the Damoodah river, near the Manbhum district. It extends throughout Bengal and the North-west 
Provinces, breeding along the banks of the Ganges and Jumna, and is also recorded from the Nerbudda and 
the Indus ; and to this latter river it would appear to resort in the Punjab to breed, for it is not said to 
inhabit Sindh at all. Turning east again we find Mr. Cripps writing of it as being rather common in Furreed- 
pore, frequenting sandy churs on the main rivers. 
Captain Feilden and Mr. Oates notice it as common on the sand banks of the Irrawaddy ; and Dr. Arm- 
strong met with it near Elephant Point, although it was rare there. It does not range far towards the south, 
being recorded, as regards Tenasserim, only from the tract of country between the Salween and Sittang rivers, 
where it was met with by Mr. Davison on small creeks or in the Thatone plains. 
Habits . — The Lesser Pratincole delights in sand banks and bare places near water. The great red sand 
hills near Hambantota, where I first discovered it in Ceylon, formed a splendid shelter for it ; in the hollows 
of this vast formation it was found in little troops of a dozen or more, reposing during the heat of the day, in 
company with small flocks of the large Sand-Plover {sEgialitis geoffroyi ) ; or else the dry foreshores of the salt 
lagoons were resorted to, and there it might be seen sitting in pairs or several together in scattered company. 
It is just as crepuscular, if not more so, than the preceding species; long after sunset, when it could 
scarcely be seen in the dusk of the evening, I noticed it hawking for insects about water-holes, flying very 
rapidly, with something of the action of the Nightjar, but with more speed and power; in the early morning 
it commenced again to feed, but desisted about 6 a.m., and scattered over the district to rest in the localities 
above named. When roused in the daytime, its flight is like that of the Lesser Tern ; but it can at once be 
distinguished from this bird by the black axillaries and under wing-coverts. It walks slowly but easily, taking 
a few little paces and then halting. Its food in Ceylon consists of grasshoppers, moths, flies, and green bugs, 
of which latter it devours enormous quantities. 
Jerdon writes of it, “Now and then large parties are seen hawking over the plains and fields ; but it prefers 
hunting up and down the banks of rivers, over sandy churs, and by large tanks. In localities where they 
abound, vast parties may be seen every evening after sunset taking a long flight in a certain direction, capturing 
various insects as they fly. They live entirely on insects, which they capture in the air, in many cases 
Coleoptera. Several which I examined had only partaken of a species of Gicindeht. 
The Pratincoles were originally styled Perdrix de mer by the French, a name singularly inappropriate. 
Nidification . — In the south-east of Ceylon the small Swallow-Plover must breed at the beginning of the 
year; for I shot the young in yearling plumage in June. They evidently nest on the great sand bank. In 
Northern India it breeds in March, April, and May, and nests in company with Terns and Skimmers 
(Rhynchops), depositing its eggs a little apart from these latter birds. Mr. Hume thus writes of its nidifi- 
cation • “ 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 absolutely 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 
