Ornithological and Other Oddities 



species, as well as for the extraordinary nature 

 of these calls. 



Everybody has heard of the North American 

 "whip-poor-will" (Caprimulgus vociferus) and 

 " chuck-will's-widow " (Caprimulgus carolinensis), 

 though why these birds have such truculent 

 views about William and his relict has not been 

 explained. In India the commonest night-jar 

 (Caprimulgus asiaticus) is often called the ice- 

 bird, for its note exactly recalls the sound of a 

 stone sent skimming over ice, most incongruous 

 in the stuffy tropic night. As the imaginary 

 stone does not always bounce the same number 

 of times, people sometimes wile away the time 

 by betting on the repetitions. 



Perhaps the most extraordinary foreign night- 

 jar, however, is one of the largest of them all, the 

 urutau of Brazil (Nyctibius jamaiceusis), a bird 

 which looks nearly as big as a crow, with a 

 perfectly preposterous mouth and shanks exhibit- 

 ing the irreducible minimum of shortness. There 

 is a story current in Brazil that the urutau is a 

 sort of living sundial, always turning its head to 

 the sun as it wears away the tedious hours of 

 daylight, sitting at the end of a stump. Dr. Emil 

 Goeldi, of the Para Museum, has, however, 

 disposed of this story, not by scoffing at it, 

 after the manner of the cheaper sort of scientist, 



but, by tethering a tame urutau out in the sun, 



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