SEPTEMBER 163 



acceptance of the tales of primitive shepherds, who, 

 seeing it flitting noiselessly to and fro in the dusk 

 among their flocks, jumped to the conclusion that it 

 was after milk. Nor have the alternative English 

 names of night-hawk and fern-owl helped to clear the 

 nightjar's character in the eyes of gamekeepers, who 

 reckon all hawks and owls as members of the criminal 

 class. 1 Needless to say, it is neither owl nor hawk, 

 though recent systematists, tracing in it some affinity 

 with owls, have assigned it a place among the Cora- 

 ciiformes, along with owls, swifts and woodpeckers. 

 One has but to examine the beak, with its wide gape 

 beset with bristles, to recognise the bird as exclusively 

 a fly-catcher, and to reject the names of goatsucker, 

 night-hawk and fern-owl in favour of the one of night- 

 jar, justly descriptive of the strange burring cry which 

 it utters interminably on still nights in the summer 

 woods. It makes this soothing sound only when 

 crouching on the ground or resting lengthways on a 

 branch. Unlike its distant cousin the swift, the night- 

 jar pursues its prey in silence. 



Admirably as the bill of the nightjar is designed for 

 the capture of large moths and other nocturnal insects, 

 it is of no use as a weaving instrument. Like the 

 stone-curlew (CEdicnemus crepitans) which, however, 

 has a beak which looks as if it might be serviceable in 

 nest-building the nightjar makes not the feeblest 

 attempt at preparing a receptacle for its eggs ; but lays 



1 The late Professor Newton noted other popular names in use in 

 different parts of England churn-owl, eve-jar, puckeridge and wheel- 

 bird, the last being in allusion to the bird's voice resembling the 

 sound of a spinning-wheel. 



