130 
allen’s naturalist’s library. 
thus extremely difficult to find, the more so as the female 
generally runs away from the eggs for a considerable distance 
before taking wing. 
Mr. Robert Read writes to me : — -“A few pairs of the Stone- 
Curlew still nest on the vast stretches of shingle along the 
shores of our south-eastern counties, where the eggs are exceed- 
ingly hard to find. Before the eggs are incubated, the old 
birds keep away from the nest all day, returning at night, when 
their shrill cries give rise to the local name of ‘ Night-Hawk.’ ” 
Eggs. — Two in number, laid on the pebbles, without any 
sign of a nest. Mr. Read says; “Sometimes they closely 
resemble each other, but sometimes they are widely different 
in colour and markings. I have seen the eggs lying side by 
side, with a couple of stones in close proximity, which so 
closely resembled the eggs, that the latter might easily have 
been passed by unnoticed.” The eggs are of a dark or light 
stone-colour, and are covered indiscriminately with brown 
spots or blotches, the latter being sometimes nearly black. 
The underlying markings are faint grey, and are generally 
obscure, but in one or two pale eggs they actually predominate 
and the dark markings are in a minority. Axis, i '9-2 "4 inches; 
diam., i '45-1 A. 
THE COURSERS. SUB-ORDER CURSORII. 
The Coursers are entirely birds of the Old World. Like all 
Plovers they have a schizognathous palate, but, with the ex- 
ception of the Black-and-grey Courser {Pluvianus cegyptius), 
the nostrils are schizorhin.al. The tarsus is transversely sealed 
in front. The Sub-order contains many different forms, such 
as the Crab-Plover {Dramas ardeola), which lays a white egg 
in a tunnel in the sand, and the Pratincoles, to which I shall 
refer later on. 
THE TRUE COURSERS. GENUS CURSORIUS. 
Cnrsorius, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 751 (1790). 
Type, C. gallicus (Gm.). 
The True Coursers have a curious pectination on the middle 
claw, which is notched on its inner side. Five species of the 
