by one on the ground. ae stand quite stll, watching with inquiring gaze; while first expanding one wing, then the other, and, sitting down, extend both legs nds, as if dead, when suddenly springing up they make another circuit and the whole flock passes quietly away. The Pratincole makes no nest, but deposits its three eggs in a slight depression of the bare sand. ‘They are usually placed with their axes parallel. We places where numbers of these birds were breeding, yet we never succeeded in finding gs were on the point of being hatched. This fact favours the idea that like those of other Gralle. The Pratincoles often are over, they all alight one others stretch themselves out, In this position they remain some seco overhead, several times visited though many of the eg on leaving the egg the young are capable of running by their incessant cries and furious attacks, as if resenting my intrusion on their a young one, attracted my attention domain.” Col. Drummond-Hay informs me that he about thirteen miles from Tangier, am also indebted for the following note, which he obligingly frequently observed the Pratincole skimming and hovering over the marshy plains where it breeds; but never saw the bird in any other part of Eastern Morocco. To this gentleman I ancois Favier, a French naturalist, resident in Tangier :— procured for me from M. Fr ing the month of May, in the small depressions made « Here the Pratincole usually deposits its eggs dur adows which are overflowed in winter. A second laying seems to take place in birds are found in June and August.” of an olivaceous stone-colour, spotted with dark brown ; but he says by the feet of animals, in me July, as recently hatched young The egg figured by Mr. Hewitson is that the eround-colour is frequently muc Lieut. Spalding says :—* Whilst boar wking for insects over the fields, flying at a height of about twenty feet, and h darker than in the one represented in his work. -shooting on the Plain of Sharon, I shot some Pratincoles. There were a great many of them ha continually uttering a sound between a low scream and a whistle. The stomach of one I examined was very full of coleopterous and other insects. I rather think they catch as many on the ground as on the wing ; for they frequently settle and run with all the ease of a Plover. They roost on the ground, and fly late at night, their large eyes being well adapted for seeing in the dusk.” The Rev. H. B. Tristram states that “ the Pratincole (Glareola pratincola) disappears from Palestine in winter, but returns in great numbers to all the marshy plains in spring, when we found them on their breeding-grounds, where they can be shot in any numbers, as they keep hovering over the intruders, undismayed by repeated discharges of the gun. As in Africa, they lay their egys in a footprint in the barest spots, without the slightest nest; they are never found where there is a vestige of vegetation, and, from their great similarity to the pebbles and bits of clay around, are very difficult to discover, while the bird employs all the artifices of a Lapwing to decoy the spoiler from them.” In the note from Lord Lilford accompanying the chicks above mentioned, he says :—“ The two young Pratincoles were taken in the great marshes on the Guadalquivir, in June 1869, and had only lett the eggs a few hours. They were brought to me alive ; and I can positively state that they run immediately alba being hatched. Pratincoles are very abundant in spring and summer in the locality above mentioned. oe ee ene oe ee habit of hawking for insects on the wing, and the colour of their About the beginning of August the young birds fly about with the adults, which, being very much Me Seen oe pee” of De phenaey when they - move said to be exceedingly graceful ack and ant ; : ane oe ae ae ht they proceed very re and i istean r to ee a | oC Te eee ie more open their ee to their full oe ae ne es we Oe Rae g gth, re 1em highly, and then settle, rather closely spread, over te sexes do not appear to differ in their colouring, and but little in size. eae bri pee a young, ch the size of life. ne aa as S, poges the impression that, as with the Plovers, this was the normal pinion that three would have been more correct.