Night-Jars at Home and Abroad 



when he found that all it did was to turn its head 

 aside more and more as the sunlight incommoded 

 it, resuming its position as the day waned ; the 

 figures in his paper in the Ibis show the bird 

 with a comically disgusted expression on its face 

 at the moment of maximum aversion to the "eye 

 of Heaven." 



In addition to the typical night-jars, there is in 

 the south-eastern parts of the old world a family 

 of allied birds, forming, to some extent, a link 

 between the night-jars and the owls, the frog- 

 mouths, well known in Australia as " moreporks," 

 corrupted into " mopehawks " and "mopokes." 

 The best-known species of these are much larger 

 and stouter birds than night-jars, with shorter 

 wings, and very strong, though short, bills. 

 They are not so active on the wing as night- 

 jars, and usually sit across a branch like ordinary 

 birds, not along it as night-jars usually do ; they 

 have the outer front toe turned back at right 

 angles to the middle one, and do not possess 

 the comb-like claw on the latter so usual in 

 the typical night-jars. Moreover, the moreporks 

 build a nest in trees with twigs, like pigeons ; 

 their eggs are white, and their young are clothed 

 in pure white down. They do well in captivity, 

 though they will not usually pick up food, but 

 expect it to be held to their bills. There 



have been several specimens of the common 



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