6 BIRDS OF 4A PLATA 
open plain. Mr. Dalgleish says of the eggs: 
“They are oval-shaped, and resemble much in 
appearance those of the Nightjar, except that the 
markings, which are similar in character to those 
of the latter, are of a reddish-brown or port-wine 
colour.” 
After the breeding-season they are sometimes 
found in flocks of forty or fifty individuals, and will 
spend months on the same spot, returning to it in 
equal numbers every year. One summer a flock of 
about two hundred individuals frequented a meadow 
near my house, and one day I observed them rise up 
very early in the evening and begin soaring about 
like a troop of swallows preparing to migrate. I 
watched them for upwards of an hour; but they 
did not scatter as on previous evenings to seek for 
food, and after a while they began to rise higher and 
higher, still keeping close together, until they dis- 
appeared from sight. Next morning I found that 
they had gone. 
In Entrerios, Mr. Barrows tells us, this Goat- 
sucker is an abundant summer resident, arriving early 
in September and departing again in April. It is 
strictly crepuscular or nocturnal, never voluntarily 
taking wing by daylight. In November it lays a pair 
of spotted eggs in a hollow scooped in the soil of 
the open plain. These in shape and markings re- 
semble eggs of the Night-hawk (Chordeiles virginianus), 
somewhat, but are of course much larger, and have 
a distinct reddish tinge. ‘‘ We found the birds not 
uncommon near Bahia Blanca, 17th February, 1881, 
