OF SELBORNE. 107 



ners I have studied more than that of the 

 caprimulgiis (the goat-sucker), as it is a 

 wonderful and curious creature : but I have 

 always found that though sometimes it may 

 chatter as it flies, as I know it does, yet in 

 general it utters its jarring note sitting on 

 a bough : and I have for many an half 

 hour watched it as it sat with its under 

 mandible quivering, and particularly this 

 Summer. It perches usually on a bare twig, 

 with its head lower than its tail, in an atti- 

 tude well expressed by your draughtsman 

 in the folio British Zoology. This bird is 

 most punctual in beginning its song exactly 

 at the close of day ; so exactly that I have 

 known it strike up more than once or twice 

 just at the report of the Portsmouth evening 

 gun, which we can hear when the weather 

 is still. It appears to me past all doubt that 

 its notes are formed by organic impulse, 

 by the powers of the parts of its windpipe, 

 formed for sound, just as cats pur. You 

 will credit me, I hope, when I assure you 

 that, as ray neighbours were assembled in 

 an hermitage on the side of a steep hill 



