0.\ TJiE Nestixg of the Nightjak. 27 



them, it will l)o noticed, furnish proof that nesting had taken 

 l)lace in the [larish, although the presence of a young bird in 

 September might be accepted as fairly conclusive evidence that 

 a nest Avas at that time in the neighbourhood. In the present 

 instance the proof is absolute, for one of the parent birds has 

 been seen, the nest site examined, and the young handled- 

 The facts are as follows : — 



On the 8th August last it was reported to me that a cuckoo 

 had been found nesting on the open moor near Girharrow, and 

 that two young birds were in the nest. As a pair of young 

 cuckoos in the same nest is an unusual, although, I believe, not 

 an unprecedented occurrence, my interest was aroused, and I at 

 once commenced inquiries. These had not proceeded far before 

 I found reason to conclude that the bird described to me as a 

 cuckoo was in reality a nightjar. Subsequent investigation 

 esta])lished this beyond all reasonable doubt. 



I first of all called at Girharrow, which is on the Auchencheyne 

 estate, about a mile and a half distant from Moniaive as the 

 crow fiies. Here the wife of the shepherd informed me that the 

 young bird.s had left the nest, Init she kindly offered to guide me 

 to the hollow on the hill where the nest had I'een found. This 

 offer I gladly accepted. Although no traces of an attempt at 

 nest-construction were visible, the precise site could easily be 

 distinguished by a few pieces of broken egg-shell lying in a 

 slight depression of the ground. The neighbourhood of the nest 

 was singularly Ijare and exposed, and it is evident that the bird 

 depends upon close imitative colouration, rather than cover, for 

 protection. Believing that the birds would not be far off, a 

 sharp look-out was kept, and, less than a score of yards from the 

 nest site, one of the parent birds, evidently the female, rose quite 

 close to us, and commenced a fluttering, broken -winged sort of 

 Hight across the heather. I soon recognised that the object the 

 bird had in view was to lure us away from its young, and I 

 remained near the spot where the bird rose. Here a careful 

 search was made, but to no purpose. The shepherd's Avife having 

 meanwhile returned to the cottage, I concealed myself, field-glass 

 in hand, behind a fiiendly rock. After waiting patiently, in 

 anything but a comfortable position, for fully a quarter of an 

 hour, I had the satisf;iction of seeing the female bird return to a 

 spot in the near neighbourhood of the place where we had first 

 seen her. I at once followed, and, although the bird took wino- 



