Fam. III. GLAREOLIDAE.–Of these Old World forms Sub-fam. 1, _Glareolinae_, includes the genera _Glareola_, _Cursorius_, _Pluvianus_, and perhaps _Ortyxelus_, the first two having the middle claw pectinated, and _Glareola_ a short, stout bill with wide gape, a forked tail, and long pointed wings. _G. pratincola_, the Pratincole, which occasionally visits Britain by way of Western France, breeds in Southern Europe and North Africa, and extends to Sind and the Tian-Shan Mountains in Asia, migrating to other parts of India and to South Africa. It is brown above, with blacker wings and tail, the secondaries having white tips, and the rectrices white bases and coverts; the throat is buff, surrounded by a black line, the breast brownish, the abdomen white; the axillaries and inner under wing-coverts are chestnut, the bill and feet blackish, with red base to the former. _G. orientalis_, found from Mongolia to Ceylon, the Malay Archipelago, and North Australia, has the tail less forked and little white on the secondaries; _G. ocularis_, of Madagascar, recorded from Mauritius and East Africa, has a pale chestnut {294}breast, and the outer pair of rectrices white with broad black ends; _G. melanoptera_ (_nordmanni_) of South-East Europe and West Asia, migrating to South Africa, has black axillaries and under wing-coverts, as have the long-legged _G. grallaria_ (_isabella_) with slightly forked tail and chestnut flanks, which breeds in Eastern Australia and occurs from New Guinea to Borneo, and the small grey-backed _G. lactea_ of India, Ceylon, and Burma, with much white on the wings. The other species have reddish feet, fading to yellow; _G. cinerea_, ranging from the Niger to the Congo, possesses a rufous nuchal collar and white axillaries; _G. nuchalis_ of the White Nile, and the hardly separable _G. emini_ of Foda in Equatorial Africa, have a white collar and grey axillaries; _G. megapoda_, extending from Liberia to the Niger, shews a rufous collar and grey axillaries. The last five forms, and _G. ocularis_, have the tail merely emarginated. Pratincoles have a shrill, screaming note and Swallow-like flight, insects, on which they feed, being ordinarily captured on the wing; but the general habits are those of Plovers, the birds running very fast, and the parents often swooping down upon an intruder, or cowering on the ground to draw attention from their brood. They frequent sand-banks, lagoons, bare plains, or coast-lands, laying two, three, or rarely four oval greenish-buff or greyish eggs, with purplish-black, brown, and grey marblings, without any nest, on the sun-baked mud.