272 CAPRIMULGIDvE. 



disturbed in such a situation they usually fly to the high 

 wood. If marked into a tree, and approached cautiously, 

 the bird will be seen sitting along a branch of an oak, 

 crouching close down upon it in the line of the limb of 

 the tree, not across it. They appear to be partial to bask- 

 ing on the ground, at the sunny side of a short bush, 

 and if approached they squat close, seldom flying off till 

 they are almost trodden upon, and then start up as if 

 from under your feet. M. Vieillot says they are partial 

 to stony places; and Mr. Dillwyn sends me word that 

 at Penllergare in the dusk of a hot summer's evening he 

 has frequently seen this bird alight in the middle of a 

 road, and fly on when disturbed to a similar dusty 

 spot only a few yards in advance, and the object ap- 

 peared to be to rub himself like the Gallina in the dust. 



Like some of our twilight flying bats, the Nightjar seems 

 to have a prescribed range over which he constantly seeks 

 his food, passing at almost regular intervals by the same 

 place many times in constant succession. When his haunt 

 and route are once known, it is not difficult to place yourself 

 so as to see him in perfection as he wheels round a fa- 

 vourite tree, and he may generally be heard before he is 

 seen. Wheel-bird, and various other provincial names are 

 bestowed upon it, most of them having reference to the 

 jarring noise which it produces. The authors of the Ca- 

 talogue of the Birds of Norfolk and Suffolk, printed in 

 the 15th volume of the Transactions of the Linnean So- 

 ciety, say, we have twice seen a Nightjar hawking about 

 in search of food in the middle of the day ; and upon one 

 of these occasions the sun was shining very bright ; and in 

 the third volume, at page 1 2, it is stated that this bird was 

 at his feed as late as ten o'clock at night to the annoyance 

 of a practical entomologist, who was out after moths. 



