90 A KENTISH PARISH 



migrants that have a special fancy for our parish is the 

 night-jar, who makes his haunt upon the heaths, and 

 hunts in the higher fir-woods. Jesse remarks, in a note 

 to his edition of White's Selborne, that these curious 

 birds are far more rarely to be met with nowadays than 

 in Gilbert White's time, in consequence of the great 

 extension of enclosures. That is the reason why they 

 have taken refuge and abound in parishes like Oaken- 

 hurst. Smoking the cigar on an upland lawn of a 

 summer evening, you hear that wild, long-drawn jar, 

 sounding from many directions around you. Nothing 

 is more deceptive as to distance, except, perhaps, the 

 cry of the landrail. But should you chance to be 

 driving out to dinner in the twilight, or returning in 

 the clear moonshine, as you let your horse pull you 

 leisurely up the hill, where the road is climbing between 

 the double banks in the spruce woods, you will see the 

 night-jar flitting across, ahead, and zigzagging in his 

 downy flight across the charts. Or you may catch 

 sight of him on his perch on the topmost pine-shoot, 

 his head well down and his tail in the air, while he is 

 hard at work grinding out the rattle which vibrates far 

 and wide in undulations of sound, according to the 

 stillness and the condition of the atmosphere. Like 

 the hedgehog and other harmless creatures, he is the 

 subject of absurd superstitions, and of many injurious 

 calumnies. So much may be said in extenuation of his 

 calumniators, that his nocturnal habits give occasion to 

 evil tongues ; and then, like most suspected characters, 

 he rejoices in a variety of aliases night-jar, night- 



