THE MEMORABLE. 



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 cau- 

 tiously towards him; quite fearless, he awaited 

 my approach, looking upon me with an un- 

 daunted eye. I fired and he fell ; before I reached 

 him he was dead. With what delight I surveyed 

 this magnificent bird 1 I ran and presented him to 

 my friend, with a pride which those can only feel, 

 who, like me, have devoted their earliest child- 

 hood to such pursuits, and have derived from 

 them their first pleasures ; to others, I must seem 

 'to prattle out of fashion.' "* 



I have already mentioned my own first ac- 

 quaintance with one of the nightjars ; the reader 

 may be pleased to have the particulars of a noc- 

 turnal interview with our native species, as 

 sketched by a plain but trustworthy observer, a 

 thorough out-of-door naturalist.! It occurred 

 under somewhat romantic circumstances. The 

 worthy man had taken a holiday from his metro- 

 politan occupations, and, to make the most of it, 

 had determined to spend a summer night sub dio. 

 By sunset he found himself many miles from Lon- 

 don, in a field in which the new-made hay was 

 ready for carrying. No human being was near, 

 and so he threw two of the haycocks into one, at 

 the edge of a wood, and ''mole-like, burrowed 

 into the middle of the hay," just leaving his head 

 exposed for a little fresh air, and free for any 

 observations he might make under the light of the 



* Loudon's " Mag. Nat. Hist.," i. p. 118. 

 + Mr. Thomas, the Bird-keeper at the Surrey Zoological Gar- 

 dens. 



179 



