282 CAPRIMULGIDJ3. 



of one or two years' growth, and have observed that if 

 disturbed in such a situation they usually fly to the high 

 wood. If marked into a tree, and approached cautiously, 

 the bird will be seen sitting along a branch of an oak, 

 crouching close down upon it in the line of the limb of 

 the tree, not across it. They appear to be partial to bask- 

 ing on the ground, at the sunny side of a short bush, 

 arid if approached they squat close, seldom flying off" till 

 they are almost trodden upon, and then start up as if 

 from under your feet. M. Vieillot says they are partial 

 to stony places ; and Mr. Dillwyn sent me word that at 

 Penllergare in the dusk of a hot summer's evening he 

 had frequently seen this bird alight in the middle of a 

 road, and fly on when disturbed to a similar dusty spot 

 only a few yards in advance, and the object appeared to 

 be to rub himself, like the Gallmce, in the dust. 



Like some of our twilight flying Bats, the Nightjar seems 

 to have a prescribed range over which he constantly seeks 

 his food, passing at almost regular intervals by the same 

 place many times in constant succession. When his haunt 

 and route are once known, it is not difficult to place your- 

 self so as to see him in perfection as he wheels round a 

 favourite tree, and he may generally be heard before he is 

 seen. Wheel-bird, and various other provincial names, are 

 bestowed upon it, most of them having reference to the 

 jarring noise which it produces. Mr. Blackwall says that 

 in Wales this bird goes by a name which means the Spin- 

 ner. The authors of the Catalogue of the Birds of Norfolk 

 and Suffolk, printed in the 15th volume of the Transactions 

 of the Linnean Society, say, "we have twice seen a Night- 

 jar hawking about in search of food in the middle of the 

 day ; and upon one of these occasions the sun was shining 

 very bright ;" and in the third volume, at page 12, it is 

 stated that this bird was at his feed as late as ten o'clock 



