NIGHTIJAR. 119 
syllabic ‘ja-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r’-—whence the descriptive name. 
It has besides a ‘dec, dec,’ which it utters when launching 
on the wing, and also a third ‘variation’—a sort of squeak. 
The Nightjar, like the Corncrake, has considerable powers of 
ventriloquism, for, the cause perhaps being alarm at your 
approach, when you think that you are close upon the vocalist, 
it seems, ‘presto,’ like the ‘will o’ the wisp,’ to have moved 
by magic; ‘abiit, evasit;’ and yet all the while you are as 
close to it as you were at first. The sound of the Nightjar’s 
hum is exceedingly pleasing to me; it is one thoroughly 
associated with sylvan scenes. 
In the middle or the end of May, nidification, so to speak 
where no nest is found, commences. 
The nest, if a few chance leaves in a hollow of the ground 
are to be called such, is found in the open rides and walks 
in woods, as also in their bordering neighbourhood, in moors 
and barren places, among heath, grass, or fern, from the latter 
of which one of its secondary names is derived. It is fre- 
quently placed at the foot of a tree or bush. 
The eggs are generally two in number, but three have been 
known in two instances: in one by Mr. Eddison, and in the 
other by the Rev. J: Pemberton Bartlett, namely, in the latter 
case, two young birds and an egg. They are very beautiful, 
and of nearly a perfect oval shape, the ground colour being 
white, which is most beautifully clouded and streaked with 
bluish grey and yellowish brown. The eggs are laid the 
beginning, and the young are hatched in the middle, of July. 
The whole plumage is remarkably soft and downy. Male; 
weight, between two and three ounces; length, about ten 
inches and a half; bill, very short and weak, black, dark 
brown colour at the tip, the lower one light brown at the 
base—a, few white feathers below the corner of it; it has a 
tooth on each side of the hooked tip: a line of white runs 
backwards from its corner; iris, inordinately large, ‘the better 
to see with,’ and dull black; nine or ten strong bristles, made 
to diverge or contract, project downwards from the under 
edge of the upper mandible. Head, on the hinder part of the 
sides, dark brown, edged below and behind with pale yellowish 
brown, making a ‘line of demarcation’ between it and the 
markings of the head and back; the shafts are margined with 
deep black; crown, pale greyish brown, the ground colour 
being yellowish white, and dotted over with dusky specks; 
two dark stripes of blackish brown feathers pass centrally to 
