CAPRIMULGIN^E. CAPRIMULGUS. 79 



Male, 11, 23, 7|, &, &, T V, / ? ^ Female, 10^ 2 If 



The eyes are fixed in the orbits nearly as strictly as in 

 owls, and are much flattened, so that the idea of turning them 

 to look through the semitransparent palate is preposterous. 

 Nor does it fly with open mouth any more than the swallows. 

 It produces a whirring noise at intervals, like the sound of a 

 spinning wheel, and occasionally emits a shrill whistle. 

 During the day it rests on the ground among furze or fern, or 

 on the branch of a tree. The eggs, two in number, are 

 broadly elliptical, an inch and two-twelfths long, ten-twelfths 

 in breadth, white, clouded with ash-grey and brown. The 

 young are at first densely covered with long whitish down, 

 and have no serrature on the claws. It arrives from the 

 middle to the end of May, departs in September, and is gene- 

 rally distributed, but not common. 



Fern Owl. Churn Owl. Jar Owl. Dor Hawk. Night 

 Jar, or Night Chur. 



Caprimulgus europeeus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 633. Caprimul- 

 gus europseus, Temm. Man. d'Ornith. i. 436. Caprimulgus 

 europaBus, European Goatsucker, MacGillivray, Brit. Birds, 

 iii. 633. 



Having disposed of two orders, we may now pause, and 

 consider what may be next brought forward. Day and night 

 can no longer be adduced in analogy, for most of the other 

 land-birds are strictly diurnal ; nor can we, with propriety, 

 force them into a ternary series or circle. The species hi- 

 therto described are most expert flyers, but awkward pedes- 

 trians. On the principle of affinity, we ought to associate 

 with them all the other birds which are more or less in the 

 same predicament. These are the Bee-eaters and Kingfishers 

 on the one hand, the Shrikes and Flycatchers on the other; 

 birds of which there are few species with us, but which are 

 abundant in the warmer regions of the globe. But the 

 Cuckoos, which form a numerous tribe, although only one spe- 

 cies occurs in this country, being so very similar to the Goat- 

 suckers in their digestive organs, must, I think, come next 

 in order. They are, in general, almost as little capable of 

 walking as the birds already described, and belong to a group, 

 of which the habit is to perch on trees or shrubs, whence they 

 glide after passing insects. 



