THE LEON A NIGHTJAR. 



101 



feathers. The chin is white, as is also a streak that passes from the corner of the mouth. A 

 broad band of white passes across the extremities of the lesser wing coverts, and there is a 

 smaller band of cream color upon the tips of the greater coverts. Another beautifully white 

 band is drawn across the middle of the first six primary feathers, and the remaining primaries 

 have a spot of white on their tips. The rest of the plumage is variegated with black and 

 brown, wanned here and there with a more ruddy hue. The tail is also white in several parts, 

 and has a number of very narrow dark bars across the middle pair of feathers. The Long- 

 tailed Goat-sucker is an inhabitant of Western Africa. 



THE LONG-WINGED GOAT-SUCKER is a scarcely less wonderful bird than the Lyre Goat- 

 sucker which has already been mentioned, the extraordinary development of feather being in 

 the present case transferred from the tail to the wing. 



LONG-WINGED GOAT-SUCKER. Cotmstornti 



The color of the Long- winged Goat-sucker is generally of the usual tints of chestnut and 

 brown, but is diversified by a broad grayish-white irregular band, which passes across the 

 centre of the secondaries, and part of the base of the primaries. From the white band, a dark- 

 brown stripe runs towards the back, the feathers composing it being tipped with white. The 

 elongated feathers of the wing increase the length of the bird to two feet or even more, and 

 their color is very dark brown on the outer web, and grayish-white on the inner. The Long- 

 winged Goat-sucker is an inhabitant of Western Africa. 



THE LEONA NIGHTJAR affords another example of the singular form which plumage so 

 often takes without any apparent object. 



In the male bird, a pair of very long and very elastic feather shafts rise from the middle 

 of the wing-coverts, and extend to a length of eight-and-twenty inches, according to the 

 individual. These shafts are totally destitute of barbs, except at the extremity where they 

 suddenly give out a broad web of four or five inches in length. The transition from the bare 

 shaft to the broad web is so abrupt that the bird looks as if it had originally possessed a pair 

 of very long perfect feathers, which had been stripped with the exception of a few inches at 



