PRATINCOLE, a word apparently invented by Latham (Synopsis, v. p. 222), being the English rendering of Pratincola, applied in 1756 by Kramer (Elenchus, p. 381) to a bird which had hitherto received no definite name, though it had long before been described and even re-cognizably figured by Aldrovandus (Ornithologia, xvii. 9) under the vague designation of "hirundo ma-rina." It is the Glareola pratincola of modern ornithologists, forming the type of a genus Glareola, founded by Brisson 2 in 1760, and unquestionably belonging (a,s is now generally ad-mitted) to the group Limicolfe, being either placed in the Family Charadriidx or regarded as constituting a separate Family Glareolidx. The Pratincoles, of which some eight or nine species have been described, are all small birds, slenderly built and mostly delicately coloured, with a short stout bill, a wide gape, long pointed wings, and a tail more or less forked. In some of their habits they are thoroughly Plover-like, running very swiftly and breeding on the ground, but on the wing they have much the appearance of Swallows, and like them feed, at least partly, while flying.3 The ordinary Pratincole of Europe, G. p-atincola, breeds abundantly in many parts of Spain, Barbary, and Sicily, along the valley of the Danube, and in Southern Russia, while owing to its great powers of flight it frequently wanders far from its home, and inore than a score of examples have been recorded as occurring in the British Islands. In the south-east of Europe a seeoral and closely-allied species, O. no.rdmatini or G. welanoptera, which has black instead of chestnut inner wing-coverts, accompanies or, further to the eastward, re-places it ; and in its turn it is replaced in India, China, and Australia by C. oi-ientalis. Australia also possesses another species, G. grallaria, remarkable for the great length of its wings and much longer legs, while its tail is scarcely forked - peculiarities that have led to its being considered the type of a distinct genus or subgenus Sti/tia. T WO specias, G. ladea and G. cinerea, from India and Africa respectively, seem by their pale coloration to be desert forms, and they are the smallest of this curious little group. The species whose mode of nidification is known lay either two or three eggs, stone-eoloured, blotched, spotted, and streaked with black or brownish-grey. The young when hatched are clothed in down and are able to run at once - just as are young Plovers. (A. N.)