334 AVES-SUB-ORDER PCDARGL 



slumbers that it ia almost impossible to arouse it, and I have frequently 

 shot one without disturbing its mate sitting close by ; it may also be 

 knocked off by sticks or stones, and sometimes is even taken with 

 the hand. When aroused, it flies lazily off with heavy flapping wings 

 to a neighbouring tree, and again resumes its slumbers until the 

 approach of evening, when it becomes as animated and active as it 

 had been previously dull and stupid. The stomach of one I dissected 

 induced me to believe that it does not usually capture its prey while on the 

 wing, or subsist upon nocturnal insects alone, but that it is in the habit of 

 creeping among the branches in search of such as are in a state of repose. 

 The power it possesses of shifting the position of the outer toe backwards, 

 as circumstances require, is a very singular* feature, and may also tend to 

 assist it in its progress among the branches. A bird I shot at Yarrundi, 

 in the middle of the night, had the stomach filled with fresh-captured mantis 

 and locusts (Phasmidw and Cicadas), which seldom move at night, and the 

 latter of which are generally resting against upright holes of the trees. In 

 other specimens I found the remains of small coleoptera, intermingled with 

 the fibres of the roots of what appeared to be a parasitic plant, such as would 

 be found in decayed ana hollow trees. The whole contour of the bird shows 

 that it is not formed for extensive flight or for performing those rapid 

 evolutions that are necessary for the capture of its prey in the air, the wing 

 being short and concave in comparison with those of the true aerial Night- 

 jars, and particularly with the Australian form to which I have given the 

 name Eurostopodus. Of its mode of nidification I can speak with confidence, 

 having seen many pairs breeding during my rambles in the woods. It makes 

 a slightly-constructed flat nest of sticks carelessly interwoven together, and 

 placed at the fork of a horizontal branch of sufficient size to ensure its 

 safety ; the trees most frequently are the Eucalypti, but I have occasionally 

 seen the nest on an apple-tree (Angophora) or a swamp-oak (Casuarina). In 

 every instance one of the birds was sitting on the eggs and the other perched 

 on a neighbouring bough, both invariably asleep ; that the male participates in 

 the duty of incubation I ascertained by having shot a bird on the nest, which, 

 on dissection, proved to be a male. The eggs are generally two in number, 

 of a beautiful immaculate white. The night-call of this species is a loud 

 hoarse noise, consisting of two distinct sounds which cannot be correctly 

 described." 



The Frog-mouths of the genus Batrachostomus are smaller birds, as a rule, 

 than the Podargi, and inhabit the Indo- Malay an region. Some, like the 

 Eared Frog-mouth of the Malay Peninsula, have long ear tufts, and many of 

 them have the mouth beset with long bristly hairs. The Owlet-Nightjars 

 (dEgotheles) are the sole representatives of the sub-family ^Egothelince. They 

 inhabit Australia and the Papuan Islands and the Moluccas. Gould describes 

 the Australian species as being somewhat Owl-like in their carriage and in 

 the way in which they turn their head round. They live in the holes of 

 trees, and come out at night in pursuit of insects, flying in a straight line, 

 and not turning and twisting about like Nightjars. They differ from the 

 latter birds, also, in their method of sitting across, and not lengthwise, on a 

 branch. 



These curious birds form a kind of connecting link between the Rollers 

 and the Frog-mouths, but they really constitute one of those peculiar forms 

 in which Madagascar abounds. The bill is something like that of a Roller, 

 but the base is hidden by recurved plumes, while the nostril is linear, and 



