244 THE BIRDS OF KENT 



later dates than this. While pairing the Nightjar is very 

 noisy. As soon as twilight begins to fade into dusk the 

 male bird glides noiselessly up to a leaf-ridden and rotten 

 tree-limb and immediately utters his call-note, a loud 

 metallic ticijrrt. When this has attracted the attention 

 of a female, who utters back a similar note, he com- 

 mences, though many trees may separate them, his grind- 

 ing churr, resembling the noise of an axe being sharpened 

 on a grindstone. This peculiar song is begun loud — so 

 loud that the dead bough seems to vibrate with the sound. 

 Suddenly the notes become soft and hardly audible, just 

 as if the bird was taking breath for a moment, and then 

 these soft notes are run again into the loud ones. This 

 churring song, always marked at regular intervals by the 

 soft bars, lasts at the most for two minutes. Then a 

 short period of silence elapses before another grind takes 

 place. And in this still silence one can almost picture to 

 one's self the sharpener feeling his axe before putting the 

 finishing touches to it on the grindstone. Besides this 

 song and call, the Nightjar has an alarm-note. It is a 

 strident ticyrrt, accompanied by a double clap of the 

 wings. A branch, dry and sapless, the bark of which 

 hangs peeled off in long shrunk-up tubes — a white dusty 

 road or a lately felled tree, shorn of its bark and shooting 

 out its naked arms into the blank night, are places they 

 seek by choice. From such points of vantage their large, 

 lustrous black eyes can the more readily detect the white 

 moths that flutter aimlessly amongst the undergrowth, 

 like pieces of delicately cut muslin falling from a dress- 

 maker's table. The Ked Underwing is also a favourite 

 food. On a clear and calm night their churrings are 

 loud and frequent. But when a night-wind is sifting 

 through the trees, and grey-lag clouds darken the summer 



