NOTES OF THE NIGHTJAR 39 



indeed, are very good illustrations of the view here 

 brought forward for instance, the croodling one 

 just mentioned, which, when it calls the chicks 

 from a distance, seems as though it could have no 

 other meaning than this, but which may also be 

 heard when parent and young are sitting together, 

 and, again, between the intervals in the process of 

 feeding the latter. Is it not, therefore, a sound 

 belonging to the soft, parental emotions, from 

 which sometimes one class of actions, and some- 

 times another, may spring the note being the same 

 in all ? From the number of sounds which the 

 nightjar has at command, I deduce that it is a bird 

 of considerable range and variety of feeling, which 

 would be likely to make it an intelligent bird also ; 

 and this, in my experience, it is. Two of the most 

 interesting notes, or rather series of notes, which 

 it utters, are modifications, or extensions, of the 

 only one which has received much attention the 

 churr, namely. One of these is a sort of jubilee of 

 gurgling sounds, impossible to describe, at the end 

 of it ; and the other much rarer a beatification, 

 so to speak, of the churr itself, also towards the 

 end, the sound becoming more vocal and expressive, 

 and losing the hard, woodeny, insect-like character 

 which it usually has. To these I will not add a 

 mere list of sounds, as to the import of which not 

 wishing to say more than I know I have nothing 

 very particular to say. 



These are days in which the theory of protective 

 coloration has been run especially, in my opinion, 

 in the case of the higher animals almost to death. 

 It may not be amiss, therefore, that I should 



