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GLAREOLA PRATINCOLA.

Common Pratincole.

Hirundo pratincola, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. Pe 345.

Glareola austriaca, Gmel. edit. Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. pp. 695, 696.
——— torquata, Meyer, Taschenb. Deutschl. Vog., tom. ii. p. 404.
pratincola, Leach, Trans. Linn. Soc., vol. xiii. pe Topi i2

 

 

Tue Glareola pratincola is the type of one of those isolated forms which have sadly

j puzzled systematic
ornithologists as to the place they should occupy in their arrangement of birds.

By many of the earlier
writers it was classed with the Swallows; some of the more recent ones have noticed its Tern-like
while by most modern systematists it is arranged with the Grallatores and in close alliance with the Plovers.

The celebrated Linnzeus, following Aldrovandus and Willughby, included it in the genus Hirundo,
in the 12th and last edition of his ‘Systema Nature’ (of 1766) ; but at that time Linné had not seen
a Pratincole, a fact of which I have became aware from a letter I possess in his own handwriting, dated
1774 (eight years later), addressed to the Reverend John White, a brother of the well-known Gilbert
White, of Selborne, in which, after rendering eternal thanks for, and commenting upon the interesting
objects he had just received from him, he says :—‘‘Pratincolam antea non vidi; ad Grallas spectat, et
proprii generis:” 2. ¢. ‘ Pratincola [ had not seen before ; it is evidently allied to the Grallz, and forms a
distinct genus.” This must have been the source of information to which Latham refers in his General
History, vol. ix. p. 361, where he says :—‘ The late Mr. White informed me that, finding Linnzeus had placed
this bird with the Swallows, he sent one to him, which had been shot on the shore of Gibraltar, in May 1770;
on the sight of which the great naturalist concurred in opinion that it belonged to the Waders, and not
to the Passerine Order.” I must fairly admit that at one time I was inclined to the Hirundine theory ;
and regarded the bird as a terrestrial Swallow rather than, as it appears to be, an aérial Plover; and this
notion prevailed with me until a very recent period, when (after soliciting various friends visiting North
Africa, Spain, and India to send me young Pratincoles one or two days old, an examination of which
I knew would confirm or refute my ideas on the subject) I was so fortunate as to obtain, through the

actions ;

kindness of Lord Lilford, two chicks of the required age in spirits, accompanied by a note informing me
that the young birds run over the ground immediately after exclusion from the egg, and are not blind,
naked, and helpless, like newly hatched Swallows,—facts which leave no doubt on my mind that the
Pratincole should not be associated with those birds.

As Linneus remarked, the bird does belong to a distinct genus, of which since his time several other
members have been discovered, the whole now amounting to nine or ten in number, all inhabitants of the
Old World, over nearly the whole of which one or other of them are distributed. In Europe there are
two—Glareola pratincola and G. melanoptera; in Africa, besides these, there are at least three others ;
in India four or five, and in Australia two, one of which is perhaps not found elsewhere.

In England the Pratincole has been killed many times and at various seasons of the year; it has also
been taken at least once in Ireland; but, as yet, Scotland has either proved to be too far north, or the birds
which would have passed over England to that country have met with the usual ill fortune of accidental
visitors. It is stated, however, that Bullock obtained an example in the Isle of Unst, one of the Shetland
group, which, at the dispersion of his collection in 1819, was sold for eight guineas, and transferred
to the British Museum.

According to Temminck, the Pratincole frequents the borders of lakes, rivers, and inland seas, parti-
cularly such as form extensive marshes covered with aquatic herbage. In Hungary, it abounds on the marshy
confines of the lakes Neusidel and Balaton, where he saw it in flocks of bundreds together. It is likewise
met with in some parts of Germany, France, and Spain, and also in Switzerland, Italy, Piedmont, and Savoy ;
but in these latter countries it must be regarded as a bird of passage or occasional visitant. Temminck
also states that it breeds in Sardinia, and is very abundant in Dalmatia, on the borders of the lake Boccagnaro
during its spring migration. It has been observed in Persia and in considerable flocks in the neighbourhood
of the Caucasus; and I possess examples from Western India. It is also said to resort to ee but
not to go further north than latitude 53°; and it will be seen from the following notes that it frequents
Palestine &c. Mr. Osbert Salvin found the Pratincole frequenting the salt lakes and freshwater marshes of

the tableland of the interior of the Eastern Atlas, and says :—‘ Its fearless manner and familiar habits cause
When in proximity to their breeding-places,

dart passionately down to within a few
When the first transports of excitement

it to rank high among the interesting birds of the country.
the whole flock comes wheeling and screaming round, while some
feet of the intruder’s head, retiring again to make another descent.