38 PASSERES. CAPRIMULGID^E. 



An intelligent person has stated to me that early 

 in the morning, where a perpendicular face of rock 

 about twenty feet high rises from the hilly pastures 

 of Mount Edgecumbe, he has seen these birds leave 

 what seemed to be nests, built in the manner of 

 some swallows, on the side of the rock, near the top. 

 But I strongly suspect he is mistaken in the identity 

 of the bird. One day, at the end of July, as I and 

 Sam were following Baldpate Pigeons on some 

 very stony pasture at Pinnock Shafton, much 

 shaded with pimento and cedar-trees, we roused 

 a bird of this family, and, I think, of this 

 species, which started from the ground near 

 our feet, and fluttered in an odd manner, invit- 

 ing our attention. I was aware of her object and 

 began to search carefully among the loose stones 

 for a young bird, or an egg, but could discover nei- 

 ther, though I have no doubt either the one or 

 the other was not far off. I have been told that it 

 habitually chooses for its place of laying, the centre 

 of a spot where a heap has been burned off in 

 clearing new ground ; perhaps on account of its 

 dryness. 



In some " Notes of a Year," published in the Com- 

 panion to the Jamaica Almanack, Mr. Hill had used 

 the term, " triangular," in connexion with the flight 

 of this bird. In reply to a question of mine, on the 

 subject, he thus writes : " I send you a diagram of 

 the flittings about of the Goatsucker. It illustrates 

 my allusion to the triangular flight of the^ bird. 

 This peculiar cutting of triangles struck my atten- 

 tion, when I was watching the morning flight of 



