NIGHTJAR. 57 



FAM. CAPRIMULGID^E. 



NIGHTJAR. Caprimulgus europcens, L. 



Yarrell, ii. p. 377 ; Harting, p. 35 ; Dresser, iv. p. 621 ; Seebohm, 

 ii. p. 309 ; Ibis List, p. 75 ; Pulteneifs List, p. 13. 



The Nightjar is a summer visitant, arriving and 

 leaving about the same time as the Swift, and breed- 

 ing freely on our heath-lands ; the female lays two 

 eggs only, on the bare ground, with no pretensions 

 to a nest. The gape of the mouth is furnished with 

 stiff bristles, to facilitate, probably, the capture of 

 prey, which is caught on the wing ; the use of the 

 pectinated middle claw is difficult to explain, and 

 for this there are many theories. Gilbert White 

 considered it to be a provision to enable the bird 

 to secure beetles, on which he observed it preying. 

 "The circumstance that pleased me most," he 

 says, 1 " was that I saw it distinctly more than once 

 put out its short leg when on the wing, and by a 

 bend of the head deliver somewhat into its mouth." 

 Wilson viewed it as "a comb to clean the bird of 

 vermin ; " Dillon thought " its chief use is to comb 

 and dress the bristles ; " Naumann, that " it might 

 be the means of enabling the bird to hold more firmly 

 when it alights upon a branch, upon which it has 

 the peculiarity of sitting lengthwise, and not across 

 it, like other birds." When disturbed in the day- 

 time, the Nightjar will fly in an apparently uncertain, 

 zigzag course to a neighbouring tree ; and when 

 1 Letter XXXVII, to Pennant. 



