162 THE NIGHTJAR 



the belief, no doubt, that they sucked the eggs of game 

 birds. Suck eggs! One could have supposed that 

 the most superficial inspection of the nightjar's beak 

 might convince anybody that it would be as reasonable 

 to accuse the Archbishop of Canterbury of robbing a 

 hen-roost. In the whole list of British birds there is, 

 in fact, not one that is more guiltless of interfering 

 with human welfare than the nightjar, which is 

 indefatigable only in pursuit of cockchafers and other 

 crepuscular winged insects. 



Why, then, are these birds persecuted ? First 

 because 



' Born a goddess, Dulness never dies.' 



People in general don't care to know the truth about 

 living creatures that they can't eat. Secondly, because 

 of the difficulty of stamping out any lie that has got a 

 good start. Lies about the nightjar have been given a 

 start of thousands of years. The Greeks called the 

 bird alyoOijXr}^ goat-milker; the Romans followed 

 suit with caprimulgus, meaning the same thing ; and 

 we have endorsed the slander by adopting the latter 

 name to designate the genus. Pliny elaborates the 

 libel, declaring that these birds enter the goat-pens, 

 suck milk from the she-goats, causing the udders which 

 are attacked to wither and the she-goat to become 

 blind ! l Italians have followed suit by naming the 

 nightjar pucciacapre, the French tette-chevre, and the 

 Germans ziegenmelker. In short, all the most intelli- 

 gent races in the world have conspired to give this 

 innocent bird a bad name, owing to their credulous 

 1 Nat. Hist., pars. i. lib. x. cap. 40. 



