26 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



should be less under control. What is really 

 interesting and curious is to hear such a note 

 expressing, even to one's human ears, the soft 

 language of affection — for it does do so in the most 

 unmistakable manner. 



Though, as we have seen, both the male and 

 female nightjar help in the hatching of the eggs, 

 the female takes the greater part of it upon herself, 

 and is also much more au fait in the business — I 

 believe so, at least. The sexes are, indeed, hard to 

 distinguish, and, as the light fades, it becomes, of 

 course, impossible to do so. Still, one cannot watch 

 a sitting pair, evening after evening, for an hour or 

 more at a time, without forming an opinion on 

 such a point ; and this is mine. We may assume, 

 perhaps, that it is the female bird who sits all day, 

 without once being relieved. If so, it is the male 

 who flies up in the evening, and from this point 

 one can judge by reckoning up the changes, and 

 timing each bird on the eggs. This I did, and it 

 appeared to me, not only that the hen was, from 

 the first, the most assiduous of the two, but, also, 

 that the cock became less and less inclined to attend 

 to the eggs, as the time of their hatching drew 

 near. So, too, he seemed to me to sit upon them 

 with less ease and to have a tendency to get them 

 separated from each other, which, in one case, led 

 to a scene which, to me, seemed very interesting, as 

 bearing on the bird's intelligence, and which I will 

 therefore describe. I must say that, previously to 

 this, when both birds were away, I had left my 

 shelter in order to pluck an intervening nettle or 

 two, and thus get a still clearer view, and I had 



