370 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



" Of its mode of nidification I can speak with confidence, having seen many pairs breeding 

 during my rambles in the woods. It makes a slightly-constructed flat nest of sticks, carelessly inter- 

 woven together, and placed at the fork of a horizontal branch of sufficient size to ensure its safety ; 

 the trees most frequently chosen are the Eucalypti, but I have occasionally seen the nest on an apple- 

 tree (Angophora) or a swamp-oak (Casuarina). In every instance one of the birds was sitting on the 

 eggs, and the other perched on a neighbouring bough, both invariably asleep. That the male par- 

 ticipates in the duty of incubation I ascertained by having shot a bird on the nest, which, on 

 dissection, proved to be a male. The eggs are generally two in number, of a beautiful immaculate 



WHIP-POOK-WILL. 



white, and of a long oval form, one inch and ten lines in length by one inch and three lines in 

 diameter. 



" Like the other species of the genus, it is subject to considerable variation in its colouring, 

 the young, which assume the adult livery at an early age, being somewhat darker in all their 

 markings. In some a rich tawny colour predominates, while others are more grey. The night 

 call of this species is a hoarse noise, consisting of two distinct sounds, which cannot correctly be 

 described. The stomach is thick and muscular, and is lined with a hair-like substance, like that 

 of the common Cuckoo." 



Mr. Waterton gives the following notes on Goatsuckers in his "Wanderings" (p. 139) : " When 

 the sun has sunk in the western woods, no longer agitated by the breeze, when you can only see 

 a straggler or two of the feathei'ed tribe hastening to join its mate, already at its roosting-place, 

 then it is that the Goatsucker comes out of the forest, where it has sat all day long in slumbering 

 ease, unmindful of the gay and busy scenes around it. Its eyes are too delicately formed to bear 

 the light, and thus it is forced to shun the naming face of day, and wait in patience till night 

 invites him to partake of the pleasures her dusky presence brings. The harmless, tinoflfending Goat- 

 sucker, from the time of Aristotle down to the present day, has been in disgrace with man. 

 Father has handed it down to son, and author to author, that this nocturnal thief subsists by 



