244 CAPBIMULGID.E. 



marked into a tree, and approached cautiously, tlie bird will 

 be seen sitting along a branch of an oak, croviching close 

 down upon it in the line of the limb of the tree, not across it. 

 They appear to be partial to basking on the ground, at the 

 sunny side of a short bush, and if approached they squat 

 close, seldom flying off till they are almost trodden upon, and 

 then start up as if from under your feet. M. Vieillot says 

 they are partial to stony places ; and Mr. Dillwyn sends me 

 word that at Penllergare in the dusk of a hot summer''s even- 

 ing he has frequently seen this bird alight in the middle of 

 a road, and fly on when disturbed to a similar dusky spot 

 only a few yards in advance, and the object appeared to be to 

 rub himself like the Gallina in the dust. 



Like some of our twilight flying bats, the Nightjar seems 

 to have a prescribed range over which he constantly seeks his 

 food, passing at almost regular intervals by the same place 

 many times in constant succession. When his haunt and 

 route are once known, it is not diflticult to place yourself so as 

 to see him in perfection as he wheels round a favourite tree, 

 and he may generally be heard before he is seen. Wheel- 

 bird, and various other provincial names are bestowed upon 

 it, most of them having reference to the jarring noise which it 

 produces. The authors of the Catalogue of the Birds of 

 Norfolk, and Suffolk, printed in the IStli volume of the 

 Transactions of the Linnean Society, say, we have twice seen 

 a Nightjar hawking about in search of food in the middle of 

 the day ; and vipon one of these occasions the sun was shining- 

 very bright ; and in the third volvmie, at page 12, it is stated 

 that this bird Avas at his feed as late as ten o'clock at night to 

 the annoyance of a practical entomologist, who was out after 

 moths. 



That the row of bristles along each edge of the upper man- 

 dible of the beak, — see vignette, — assists this bird when 

 feeding on the wing, by increasing the means of capture by 



