394 EUROPEAN GOATSUCKER. 



Jar of British authors. This chastely coloured 

 and beautiful marked bird is of general distribu- 

 tion, extending to the most northern counties of 

 Scotland, and appearing with us towards the end 

 of May. At the commencement of twilight, 

 when they are first roused from their daily 

 slumber, they perch on some bare elevation of 

 the ground, an old wall or fence, or heap of 

 stones, or peat-stack, and commence their mono- 

 tonous drum or whirr, closely resembling the 

 dull sound produced by the wheel used for spin- 

 ning wool, and possessing the same variation of 

 apparent distance in the sound which is per- 

 ceived in the crake of the land rail, or the cry 

 of the coot and water rail, or croaking of frogs. 

 At one time, it appears so near as to cause an 

 alarm that you disturb the utterer ; at another, 

 as if the bird had removed to an extreme dis- 

 tance, while, during the time, it remained unseen 

 at a distance of perhaps not more than forty 

 or fifty yards. The flight, when hawking in the 

 open grounds, is never high, and is performed 

 without any regularity ; sometimes straight for- 

 ward, or in gliding circles, with a slow steady 

 clap of the wings, in the middle of which they 

 will abruptly start into the air for thirty 

 or forty feet, resuming their former line by 

 a gradual fall. At other times it will be per- 

 formed in sudden jerks upwards, in the fall keep- 

 ing the wings steadily closed over the back, 

 skimming in the intervals near the ground, and 



