i8io THE PICARIAN BIRDS 



of the gape, as well as by the shortness of the tail, which only equals about, 

 half the length of the wing. The general plumage is of the usual mottled hue, but 

 the tail is distinctly barred; while the primary quills are conspicuously white, and 

 the secondaries lighter brown, with blackish brown bars and vermiculations; the 

 central tail feathers being like the back, with broad white tips to the outer ones; the 

 abdomen and under tail coverts white; the lores and upper throat reddish, with 

 blackish brown bars; the chin almost uniform rust color; and the lower throat very 

 dark brown, the breast being similar to the upper parts. The length is eleven and 

 one-half inches. Mr. W. H. Hudson writes that ' ' the specific name of this goat- 

 sucker is from the Guarane word nacundd, which Azara tells us is the Indian nick- 

 name for any person with a very large mouth. In the Argentine country it has 

 several names, being called dormibu (sleepy-head), or duerme-duerme (sleep-sleep), 

 also gallina riega (blind hen). It is a large handsome bird, and differs from its 

 congeners in being gregarious, and in never perching on trees or entering woods. 

 It is an inhabitant of the open pampas. In Buenos Ayres and also in Paraguay, ac- 

 cording to Azara, it is a summer visitor, arriving at the end of September and leav- 

 ing at the end of February. In the love season the male is sometimes heard utter- 

 ing a song or call, with notes of a hollow mysterious character; at other times they 

 are absolutely silent, except when disturbed in the daytime, and then each bird, 

 when taking flight, emits the .syllable kuf in a hollow voice. When flushed, the 

 bird rushes away with a wild, zigzag flight, close to the ground, then suddenly 

 drops like a stone, disappearing at the same moment from sight as effectually as if 

 the earth had swallowed it up, so perfect is the protective resemblance in the color- 

 ing of the upper plumage to the ground. In the evening, they begin to fly about 

 earlier than most Caprimulgi, hawking after insects like swallows, skimming over 

 the surface of the ground and water with a swift, irregular flight; possibly the habit 

 of sitting in open places, exposed to the full glare of the sun, has made them some- 

 what less nocturnal than other species that seek the shelter of thick woods or herb- 

 age during the hours of light. After the breeding season they are sometimes found 

 in flocks of forty or fifty individuals, and will spend months on the same spot, 

 returning to it in equal numbers evety year. One summer a flock of about two 

 hundred individuals frequented a meadow near my house, and one day I observed 

 them rise up very early in the evening and begin soaring about like a troop of 

 swallows preparing to migrate. I watched them for upward of an hour, but they 

 did not scatter as on previous evenings to seek for food; and after a while they 

 began to rise higher and higher, still keeping close together, until they disappeared 

 from sight. Next morning I found that they had gone." 



With these large and mainly South American nightjars we come to 

 ^Ar ood 



N . h . the sole representatives of the second subfamily. They are charac- 

 terized by the plumage being more mottled than in the true nightjars, 

 and the extreme shortness of the metatarsus, which is inferior in length to all the 

 toes, as well as by the absence of the comb on the third toe. Moreover, the sides 

 of the body and breast carry large "powder-down" patches, which do not exist in 

 the typical subfamily. Of these birds there are six species, which range from Mex- 

 ico to Brazil, and are also represented in Jamaica. The note of these nightjars is 



