THE PUCKERIDGE 225 



over the gate on which we lean, and away through 

 the hay-field. At the same moment its mate flies 

 from the thicket and pursues the croaking one, striking 

 his wings together over his back, and producing that 

 hollow-handed clapping that had made us think of 

 something human lurking under the bushes. 



Everything that the puckeridge does gives it an air 

 of distinction among birds. Just before this evening 

 purring begins, we usually see a bird with lobed wings, 

 like those of the lammergeier, wheeling high in the 

 air. There is no other English bird like that ; it is 

 the puckeridge, perhaps on its way from one of its 

 day haunts to the scene of its night gambols, perhaps 

 sweeping the heavens for the same minute insect-life 

 that sustains the swallow. Every one who writes of 

 the night-jar has something about its " hawking for 

 moths in the bracken," or " wheeling around trees, 

 capturing ghost-moths." It is a thing we have never 

 seen, though we have seen night-jars and bats hunting 

 the same district, and have over and over again seen 

 the bats thus enjoying the pleasures of the chase. We 

 have no doubt that many have written of this thing 

 who have not seen it. It is so easily imagined that a 

 bird of this size should require larger food than midges, 

 yet the fact remains that the night-jar's wide mouth, 

 with the fringe of stiff bristles round it, is exquisitely 

 designed for sweeping in tiny beetles, gnats, and the 

 other trifles that swallows feed on by similar means. 



" It beats to and fro," says Mr. Charles Dixon, "over 

 the open heaths and fern-brakes, under the trees and 

 round about feeding cattle, in quest of the moths, 

 beetles, and other night-flying insects upon which it 

 subsists." It was its close attention to cattle that 

 IS 



