SUMMER BIRDS 157 



ance than the cockiest sparrow that ever hopped. 

 Add to this the grace and agility of his movements, 

 and you have a bird that seems born to the purple, 

 though by some accident nothing more vivid than 

 russet, black and white, has been served out to him. 

 Late in these delicious evenings may be heard the 

 nightjar latest of our summer migrants to arrive 

 and earliest to depart reeling off his strange cry 

 like a wooden rattle. No bird has suffered more 

 unjustly than this one from a variety of libellous 

 names. Closely crepuscular in habits, its uncanny 

 looks brought suspicion on it while the world was 

 yet very young. Thus Pliny gravely dubbed it 

 Caprimulgus, Aristotle Aigothelas, terms which we 

 have closely translated 'goatsucker,' thus indorsing 

 the ridiculous idea that it sucks the milk of cows 

 and goats, arising from its custom of pursuing 

 winged insects under the bellies of cattle. Then 

 the titles of fern-owl and night-hawk brought it into 

 the gamekeeper's Index expurgatorius as vermin, 

 though another of its popular names, dor-hawk the 

 scourge of dors or beetles ought to have sufficed 

 to protect it. Thousands of these beautiful and 

 useful birds have paid the death-penalty on the 

 charge of killing game and sucking milk or eggs, 



