872 NATURAL HISTORY. 



and you will have some idea of the moaning of the largest Goatsucker in Demerara. Four 

 other species of the Goatsucker articulate some words so distinctly that they have received their 

 names from the sentences they utter, and absolutely bewilder the stranger 011 his arrival in these 

 parts. The most common one sits down close by your door, and flies, and alights three or four 

 yards before you as you walk along the road, crying ' Who are you, who-who-who-are-you.' Another 

 bids you ' Work away, work- work- work-away.' A third cries mournfully, ' Willy-come-go, willy- 

 willy-willy-come-go.' And high up in the country a fourth tells you to ' Whip-poor-will, whip- 

 whip-whip-poor-will.' You will never persuade the negro to destroy these birds, or get the Indian 

 to let fly his arrows at them. They are birds of omen and reverential dread. Jumbo, the demon 

 of Africa, has them under his command, and they equally obey the Yabahou, or Demeraran Indian 

 Devil. They are receptacles for departed souls who come back again to earth, unable to rest for crimes 

 done in their days of nature ; or they are expressly sent by Jumbo or Yabahou to haunt cruel 

 or hard-hearted monsters, and retaliate injuries received from them. If the largest Goatsucker 

 chance to cry near the white man's door, sorrow and grief will soon be inside ; and they expect to 

 see the master waste away with a slow consuming sickness. If it be heard close to the negro's or 

 Indian's hut, from that night misfortune sits brooding over it, and they await the event in terrible 

 STispense." 



The common Goatsucker, which is also popularly known as the " Fern Owl," or " Nightjar," 

 visits England only in the spring, when it arrives from Southern Africa, and distributes itselt over 

 the country. It is by no means an uncommon bird, but is rarely seen, owing to its habit of coming 

 out only at night, or at least in the twilight. They may then often be disturbed from the ground in 

 a country road, when they take to flight in a heavy manner, often making a flapping noise, which 

 appears to be caused by bringing the wings sharply together above the body of the bird. The call- 

 note may be described as " churring," and is disagreeable in sound ; it is 

 generally uttered by the Goatsucker when sitting on a low branch of a tree 

 or on a railing. It should be mentioned that the Caprimulgidae do not, as 

 a rule, sit crosswise on a branch, but always along the latter ; their favourite 

 haunt, however, is generally the ground, and it is supposed by some naturalists 

 that the curious pectinated claw is used by the Goatsucker for scratching 

 the ground. Dr. Giinther, F.R.S., who kept one of these birds alive, says 



FOOT OF THE COMMON GOAT- tliat ^ fr e q uen % usecl its comb-like claw for this purpose. Other people 

 SUCKER. have thought that its claw was intended for dealing away the debris of 



moths and other insects, which would clog the bristles on the bill. The 

 true use of this comb-like appendage on the foot has not yet, however, been thoroughly determined. 



THE ELEVENTH FAMILY OF THE FISSIROSTRAL PICARIAN BIRDS. 

 THE SWIFTS (Cypselidce). 



These birds, with the Humming-birds, are separated from the other Fissirostral Picarice by many 

 anatomical characters, the chief being the arrangement of the feather-tracts on the body, which are 

 quite peculiar ; the muscles are also unlike those of the other families, and hence these two groups 

 are often divided off by modern naturalists under the name of Macrochires. * 



THE COMMON SWIFT (Cypxelut apm}.* 



In the beginning of May the Common Swift comes to Great Britain and the rest of Europe, 

 after passing his winter sojourn in South Africa. He is one of the latest arrivals, as he conies only 

 when summer has fairly begun and fine weather is pretty well assured ; again, in autumn, he is 

 almost the first of the summer migrants to take his departure, and the absence of the Swifts from 

 their accustomed haunts is a sure sign of the approach of the fall of the year. So incumbent 

 does this early migration seem to be upon the species, that the Swifts have been known to leave 

 their young to perish of starvation rather than delay their departure if cold weather suddenly 



* jxaicpds, long ; x''p> a hand, in the sense of a wing of a bird. "1" Cypselus, a swift ; a, not ; jroii?, a foot 



