GLAREOLA PRATINCOLA.
Common Pratincole.
Hirundo pratíncola, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 345.
Glareola austriaca, Gmel. edit. Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. pp. 695, 696.
; torquata, Meyer, Taschenb. Deutschi. Vög., tom. ii. p. 404.
-----------pratíncola, Leach, Trans. Linn. She., vol. xiii. p. 131, pi. 12.
T he Glareola pratíncola is the type o f one o f those isolated forms which have sadly puzzled systematic
ornithologists as to the place they should occupy in their arrangements of birds. By many o f the earlier
writers it was classed with the Swallows ; some of the more recent ones have noticed its Tern-like actions ;
while by most modern »ystematists it is arranged with the Grallatores and in close alliance with the Plovers.
The celebrated Linnaeus, folfowiog Aldrovandus and Willughby, included it in the genus Hirundo,
in the 12th and last edition o f his ‘ Systema Naturæ ’ (o f 1766) ; but at that time Linné had not seen
a Pratincole, a fact o f which I have become aware from a letter I possess in his own handwriting, dated
1774 (eight years later), addressed to the Reverend John White, a brother o f the well-known Gilbert
White, o f 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 : ” i. e. “ Pratíncola I had not seen before ; it is evidently allied to the Grallæ, 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 :— “ T he late Mr. White informed.me that, finding Linnseus 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 o f 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 tíme I was inclined to the Hirundine theory,
and regarded the bird as a terrestrial Swallow rather than, as it appears to be, an aerial 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 o r two days old, an examination of which
I knew would confirm or refute ray ideas on the subject) 1 was so fortunate as to obtain, through the
kindness o f 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 Linnæus 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 o f which one o r other o f them are distributed. In Europe there are
two— Glareola pratíncola'dad G. melanoptera ; in Africa, besides these, there are a t least three others;
in India four or five, and in Australia two, one o f which is perhaps not found elsewhere.
Jn Eneland the Pratincole has been killed many times and a t various seasons of the year ; it has also
been token m 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 o f accidental
visitors. I t is' stated, however, that Bullock obtained an example in the Isle o f Unst, one of the Shetland
group, which, at the dispersion of Ms 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, particularly
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 o f hundreds together. I t is likewise
met with in some parts o f Germany, France, and Spain, and also in Switzerland, Italy, Piedmont, and Savoy ;
but in these latter countries it must be regarded as a bird o f passage or occasional visitant. Temminck
also states that it breeds in Sardinia, and is very abundant in Dalmatia, on the borders o f the lake Boccagnaro
during its spring migration. It has been observed in Persia and in considerable flocks in the neighbourhood
o f the Caucasus ; and I possess examples from Western India. It is also said to resort to Tartary, but
not to go further north than latitude 53° ; and it will be seen from the following notes that it frequents
Palestine &c. Mr. Ósbert Salvin found the Pratincole frequenting the salt lakes and freshwater mar-hes of
the tableland o f the interior of the Eastern Atlas, and says :— “ Its fearless manner and familiar habits cause
it to rank high among the interesting birds of the country. When in proximity to their breeding-places,
the whole flock comes wheeling and screaming round, while some d art passionately down to within a few
feet of the intruder’s head, retiring again to make another descent. When the first transports of excitement