116 NIGHT JAB. 



plantation ; the old bird led me to search by her dissembling- 

 incapacity of flight. I looked again, when it was nearly ready 

 to fly. Being a night-feeder it is seldom destroyed by game- 

 keepers.' Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, 

 Devonshire, Cornwall, Cumberland, and Westmorland, contain 

 localities for this bird; Wales also, and some parts of Ireland, 

 as also of Scotland. In the Orkney Islands, 'two were shot 

 at Lopness, during the summer of 1810. One was killed near 

 Kirkwall, by Captain Chisholm, 9th. E. V. B.; and another 

 was obtained at Lopness, by Mr. Strang, on the 1st. of June, 

 1825.' Mr. Dunn mentions the occurrence of one in Shetland. 



The Nightjar inhabits woods, both of old and young growth, 

 and also open moors, heaths, and commons, where fern and 

 brushwood afford it shelter. 



It is a migratory bird, visiting this country in the middle 

 or end of May a very late arrival; and leaving again by 

 the middle or end of September, or beginning of October; 

 some say so soon as the end of August: a few individuals, 

 however, stay longer. Montagu records his having shot one 

 in Devonshire, on the 8th. of November, 1805; and Mr. Couch 

 reports that one was shot in Cornwall, on the 27th. of 

 November, 1821. 



The remarkable trait in the character of the Nightjar is 

 that it perches lengthwise, instead of crosswise, on the branch 

 of a tree, generally witli its head downwards, according to 

 the inclination of the branch, especially while in the attitude 

 of repose; during the day it crouches very close to it; its 

 brown colour assimilating to that of the bark. They have 

 been seen dusting themselves in the middle of a road. In 

 his 'Catalogue of the Birds of Melbourne,' in Derbyshire, in 

 the 'Zoologist,' page 2606, J. J. Briggs, Esq. relates that in 

 1844 two of these birds were seen near Donnington Park, 

 hawking for insects at mid-day, by the side of a large wood; 

 which perhaps may have been rather a shady situation; and 

 two other such instances are recorded in the fifteenth volume 

 of the 'LinnaBan Transactions.' Such, however, is certainly 

 not their usual habit. Occasionally these birds are to be seen 

 'couchant' on a stone heap or other eminence, and they also 

 at times bask in the sun on the side of a bank or other 

 such sheltered situation. They are very fearless when they 

 are engaged with their young, and will glance in their fitful 

 phantom way quite close by you. White of Selborne says, 

 'when a person approaches the haunt of the Fern Owls in 



