314 BRITISH BIRDS. 



stump of a dead broken-off branch which has been grown over with lichen. 

 The young of this bird, when able to crawl about, show remarkable ability 

 to conceal themselves by running into nooks and corners, where they 

 remain quite still until the danger has passed. They are fed and tended 

 for some time after they are able to fly ; and the old birds may be repeatedly 

 seen catching food for them in the evening, the young birds perching on 

 the stumps or fences and waiting to be fed. 



The plumage of the Common Goatsucker is as difficult to describe as 

 that of an Owl. The ground-colour of each feather is greyish white, 

 occasionally varied to buff, but generally nearly concealed with delicate 

 pencillings of dark grey and shaft-lines and obscure bars of nearly black. 

 The shaft-lines are broadest on the head and scapulars, the latter of which 

 have broad buff margins to the outside webs. The male is distinguished 

 from the female by having the two outside tail-feathers on each side 

 broadly tipped with white, and by having a large white patch near the 

 centre of the three first primaries of each wing. There is also a small 

 white patch on the cheeks and a larger one on each side of the throat of 

 the male, which are pale buff in the female. 



Young males in first plumage have the large spots on the wings and tail 

 smaller than in adults, and buff instead of white. At each succeeding 

 moult these spots appear to become larger in size and purer white in 

 colour. There seems to be little or no difference between summer and 

 winter plumage. The horny development at the side of the claw of the 

 middle toe is whole in the young nestling, but appears to split into pecti- 

 nations as the bird grows, a half-fledged bird having only three or four 

 slits, which afterwards double in number. 



