NIGHT-JARS AT HOME AND 

 ABROAD 



Just as the owls take up the butchering business 

 where the hawks leave it off, so, when the shades 

 of night fall upon the world, do the night-jars 

 enter upon the pursuit of the insects which the 

 insect-eating birds of day then leave to work their 

 wicked will. 



Our familiar British species {Caprimulgus 

 europczus), so beloved of Gilbert White, is an 

 excellent example of the typical night-jars, and 

 is found in many countries, from Norway to 

 South Africa, and from Ireland to the Punjab, 

 the northern countries being, of course, its home 

 only in summer. Although I have watched him 

 in his haunts at home, and listened to his loud 

 mysterious purring, and the strange cracking 

 sound, which, like the common pigeon, he pro- 

 duces by clapping his wings, I have nowhere had 

 such good views of the night-jar as on voyages 

 to and from the East, when these happened to 

 fall in the passage seasons of the birds. The 

 night-jar at sea is most remarkably tame, and 



seems very curious, for he will skim along the 



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