260 



THE NIGHTJAR. 



one was shot at Abbey St. Bathans by Shearlaw, the game- 

 keeper there, about 1874. Mr. Lockie writes, 1887, that one 

 was obtained at Spottiswoode several years since, and Mr. 

 Charles Watson, Duns, informs me that a specimen was 

 procured at Cockburn in 1873, as late in the season as 

 September. The Nightjar is very rare in the neighbourhood 

 of Paxton. I have seen it here only once during the last 

 seventeen years — on the 19th of May 1878. The gamekeeper 

 at Mordington tells me that it is sometimes observed about 

 the " Lang Belt " plantation there ; and Mr. John Thomson 

 reports to me that it is a regular summer visitor to the 

 neighbourhood of Mertoun and Cowdenknowes. Mr. Pringle, 

 Ayton Castle, has informed me that he shot a Nightjar on 

 Cocklaw Farm on the 10th of September 1887, and that one 

 was killed at The Press about the same time. 



The bird usually roosts on the ground amongst ferns or 

 other herbage ; and on being disturbed it generally flies to 

 a large tree, if one be near, crouching down along one of the 

 branches, and not sitting across it, in the usual manner of 

 birds. Its food consists solely of insects, such as large 

 moths and night-flying beetles. The eggs, which are two in 

 number, are laid in June, upon the bare ground — often 

 amongst brackens in the vicinity of woods — and are very 

 beautiful. Their texture is smooth, and their colour white, 

 mottled, clouded, blotched, or spotted with lilac, grey, and 

 brown of various shades. 



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