THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
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Radde (lx.) says : “ On my expedition in May, 1855, I last observed 
them on the Barabinsk Steppe. On July 9th, 1856, I found several pairs 
busy nesting on the salt-marshes about 20 versts east of Abagaitui near the 
mouth of the Urtuisk.” 
This bird is only a winter-visitor to Australia, breeding in Siberia. It 
has been long known under Leach’s name of Glareola orientalis, given in 1820, 
but it was described by Latham in the General Synopsis of Birds, Vol. III., 
pt. I., p. 224, 1785, three times over, as varieties of the Austrian Pratincole : 
First as var. B, Maldivian Pratincole; open sea near Maldivia Islands, 
then var. C, Coro^nandel Pratincole ; on the coast of Coromandel, 
and var. D, Madras Pratincole ; about Madras and other parts on the 
coast of Coromandel. 
These descriptions refer to various states of plumage of the same bird. 
In 1795, ten years afterward, when Latham and Davies prepared a 
Faunula Indica, they gave Latin names to these three varieties, as noted in 
the synonymj^ 
I believe Dr. C. W. Richmond was the first to draw attention to these 
names {Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., Vol. XXXV., p. 635 (footnote), 1908) as being 
equivalent to and antedating Glareola orientalis, though Sherborn had 
recorded them in his invaluable Index Aninnalium, published in 1902. I at 
once adopted the earliest one in 1911, when it was first brought to my notice. 
The bird figured and described is a male, collected on Parry’s Creek, 
North-west Australia, on the 23rd January, 1909, by Mr. J. P. Rogers. 
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