PRATINCOLE. 
13 
arrival of part of the flock on their migrations. ‘By the 
beginning of August, the young fly about with the adult birds; 
the parents being very much attached to their brood, accompany 
them until the beginning of September, when they one and 
all think of returning and going southward for the winter.’ 
They are capable of being easily tamed. In their wild 
state they are restless, lively, sociable, that is among themselves, 
for they rarely associate with other species. ‘Where they 
meet with suitable ground, they remain for some time in the 
neighbourhood, flying away in a body and often returning again 
in a moment, to the great surprise of the beholder who may 
happen to have startled them up.’ If alarmed when feeding, 
they strike the tail two or three times against the ground, 
and soon after take wing. 
They fly with extraordinary rapidity, and their evolutions 
in the air are exceedingly graceful, quick, and beautiful, and 
they also run very fast. ‘When a flight of them passes 
through the air within sight, they proceed very swiftly, and, 
on lowering to alight they shoot like arrows by one another; 
finally they once more open their wings to their full length 
and highly raised, and then settle, rather closely spread over 
the ground.’ 
They take their food on the wing, hawking about after the 
manner of the Swallows, and also on the ground, from whence 
they spring into the air to catch their prey. They live on 
flies, gnats, cockchaffers, and other beetles, grasshoppers, and 
other insects and worms. The larger sorts they knock against 
the ground with their bills, to kill, and to dislodge the harder 
parts. 
Meyer says, ‘the call-note sounds like the word ‘carjah,’ 
‘carjah,’ and ‘bedrse,’ ‘bedrse,’ very quickly expressed.’ 
A slight depression in the soil serves for a nest, or it is 
placed, Selby says, among rushes or other thick herbage. 
Many nests are often made not far from each other. 
The eggs, four in number, are spotted with brown. 
Male; length, from about nine inches to ten and a quarter, 
or even ten and a half or over, according to the age of the 
bird, the tail being shorter at first; bill, somewhat hooked, 
short, and broad at the base, black, the sides and the base 
of the lower mandible, which is shorter than the upper, and 
received into it, scarlet orange, brightest in spring. The bill 
is smaller in young birds. Iris, light reddish brown, the 
eyelids clothed with small white feathers; a black line runs to 
