The Natural History of Selborne 93 



Jieron 



than that of the ca-primulgus (the goat-suckers), 1 as it is a wonderful 

 and curious creature ; but I have always found that though some- 

 times it may chatter as it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it 

 utters its jarring note sitting on a bough ; and I have for many a 

 half-hour watched it as it sat with its under mandible quivering, and 

 particularly this summer. It perches usually on a bare twig, with its 

 head lower than its tail, in an attitude well expressed by your 

 draughtsman in the folio " British Zoology." This bird is most 

 punctual in beginning its song exactly at the close of day ; so 

 exactly that I have known it strike up more than once or twice just 

 at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear 

 when the weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt that its 

 notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of 

 its windpipe, formed for sound, just as cats purr. You will credit me, 

 I hope, when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled 

 in an hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one 



1 More commonly known nowadays as the night-jar. ED. 



