Oriental pratincole Oriental pratincole The oriental pratincole ("Glareola maldivarum"), also known as the grasshopper-bird or swallow-plover, is a wader in the pratincole family, Glareolidae. The genus name is a diminutive of Latin "glarea", "gravel", referring to a typical nesting habitat for pratincoles. The species name "maldivarum" refers to the type locality, the ocean near the Maldive Islands; the type specimen, caught alive at sea, survived for a month on flies. These birds have short legs, long pointed wings and long forked tails. They have short bills, which is an adaptation to aerial feeding. The back and head are brown, and the wings
Bucca (mythological creature) in Cornish tin mines, granting wishes in exchange for food (see knockers). Bucca (mythological creature) Bucca is a male sea-spirit in Cornish folklore - a merman- that inhabited mines and coastal communities as a hobgoblin during storms. The mythological creature is a type of water spirit likely related to the Púca from Irish and Welsh folklore and the female mari-morgans - a type of mermaid from Welsh and Breton mythology. Rev W. S. Lach-Szyrma, one 19th-century writer on Cornish antiquities, suggested the Bucca had originally been an ancient pagan deity of the sea such as Irish Nechtan or British Nodens,