] 86 THE MEMOKABLE. 



heads, kept up a growling, threatening cry, to intimidate 

 us from our suspected design." 



Tempestuous weather prevented access to the nest for 

 several days, at the end of which time it was found that 

 the young had been removed by the parents. " I come 

 at last to the day I had so often and so ardently desired. 

 Two years had gone by since the discovery of the nest, 

 but my wishes were no longer to remain ungratified. I 

 saw one day one of these birds rise from a small inclosure, 

 where some hogs had been slaughtered, and alight upon 

 a low tree branching over the road. I prepared my 

 double-barrelled piece, which I constantly carry, and went 

 slowly and cautiously towards him ; quite fearless, he 

 awaited my approach, looking upon me with an undaunted 

 eye. I fired, and he fell ; before I reached him he was 

 dead. With what delight I surveyed this magnificent 

 bird ! I ran and presented him to my friend, with a 

 pride which those can only feel, who, like me, have 

 devoted their earliest childhood to such pursuits, and 

 have derived from them their fiLrst pleasures ; to others, 

 I must seem ' to prattle out of fashion.' " * 



I have already mentioned my own first acquaintance 

 with one of the nightjars ; the reader may be pleased to 

 have the particulars of a nocturnal interview with our 

 native species, as sketched by a plain but trustworthy 

 observer, a thorough out-of-door naturalist.-f- It occurred 

 under somewhat romantic circumstances. The wortliy 



* Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist, I, p. 118. 



•j" Mr Thomas, the Bird-keeper at the Surrey Zoological Gardena. 



