68 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



The nightjar family is a very large one, and in the bush 

 localities of the New World I have been impressed by 

 the powers of flight of a bird which I do not doubt belongs 

 to the nightjar tribe. It has white-slashed wings, and 

 its flight is characteristic of the family. Its mastery of 

 the air, however, passes all belief. Compared with it 

 the swift is a slow mover, and even the peregrine a 

 sluggard. For days none of these birds are seen ; then, 

 just preceding a thunderstorm, thousands of them swarm 

 as though by magic across the sky. Whence they come 

 no man can say. The sky is veritably dark with them. 

 Fifty, a thousand, two thousand feet up they can be seen, 

 while the air veritably shakes with their shrill cries and 

 the vibrations of their pinions. I have lain on my back 

 watching them, absorbed with wonder, heedless of the 

 coming storm. There is one on the skyline, he is over- 

 head, he is falling earthwards with a veritable roar of 

 pinions. He almost brushes the tree tops ; then, in a 

 moment, he is careering heavenwards again in crazy 

 bounds, he is a mere speck in the gathering sky, he is 

 away in the distance among a thousand, thousand of his 

 kind! 



One feels a thunder spot on one's face, and wakens to 

 the realization that the canoe is on the storm side. It 

 takes but a few seconds to beach it, but looking up — 

 where are the thunder birds ? Gone ! Vanished like vapour 

 into the ether of the infinite 1 Not one remains, not 

 one is to be seen or heard, and now the rain begins to 

 fall thick and fast, and other things claim one's immediate 

 thoughts. So, swifter than the storms are the thunder 

 birds, and, like the storm-petrel, they live in mystery 

 when the skies are clear. 



I would like to relate three incidents within my 

 experience concerning the nightjar ere closing this chapter. 

 A keeper who for many years served my father possessed 



