126 CRUSOE'S ISLAND. 



even its Latin name, Caprimulgus^ bears out the popu- 

 lar tradition — in Europe, at least — that it surrepti- 

 tiously deprives the goats of their milk, that being the 

 literal rendering of " goatsucker," a name by which 

 it is sometimes called in America. It probably ob- 

 tained that appellation from its habit of flying about 

 and close to cattle and goats in search of the insects 

 near and preying upon them. A more apphcable 

 name is that bestowed by the older ornithologists, of 

 " night swallow," as, indeed, it is the swallow of the 

 night, pursuing and destroying the nocturnal insects, 

 and in its flight somewhat resembling the swallows, 

 sailing gracefully through the air; though not so 

 swiftly as they. 



All the flycatchers are of shy and retiring habits, 

 never courting observation, and a whole family might 

 live within a stone's throw of your dwelling and you 

 never be the wiser for their presence. Of several 

 new species I discovered in the West Indies, two or 

 three were of this family ; one of them was called by 

 the natives the "sunset bird," because of its cry, 

 which, they said, was the French patois for sunset, 

 soleil coucherJ^ 



Their nests are sometimes as curious as the birds 

 themselves, one of the Tyrannidce discovered contain- 

 ing skeins of cotton of various colors, locks of hair, 



* This bird was named, in honor of its discoverer, the Myiar- 

 chus Oberi, by the ornithologists of the Smithsonian Institution. 

 All the birds described in this book, as well as many others sent 

 to the Smithsonian Institution by the author, may be found in its 

 collections and catalogued in its Reports. 



