496 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



many a time have I watched its feigned lameness in trying to lure me from 



its eggs or young, which latter are, I think, some of the oddest little things 



to behold, with their enormous mouths, large eyes, and ruffled plumage, as 



they squat on the ground, as helpless as they are peculiar in appearance. 



It has often struck me that a bird like the Nightjar, which nests on the 



bare ground, and frequently in an open space where no protection seems to 



offer itself, must have many foes against which, both directly and indirectly, 



to contend — the feet of passing men or grazing animals, not to mention rats, 



stoats, and a host of other enemies — from which a species nesting in a tree 



is comparatively secure ; and yet this very exposure is often the surest 



safeguard, especially when under the watchful eye of the parent bird. 



I recollect on one occasion, in the dusk of evening, seeing a Nightjar 



buffeting its wings in the face of a cow that was quietly feeding upon the 



heaths, and at first imagined that the bird was feeding upon the moths 



which had been roused by the movements of the quadruped, but on 



approaching more closely I saw the cow turn from its proposed course, and 



the bird immediately left it. Next evening I went to the same place, and 



found two eggs of the Nightjar within a few feet of the spot where the cow 



had turned out of its way. The eggs I left, and in due time they were 



hatched, but when the young were only a few days old they altogether 



disappeared from the place, and were, as I supposed, either taken or 



destroyed. About a week after, in passing the same place, imagine my 



surprise at seeing the old bird act its feigned lameness, and finding what 



I suppose were the same young ones, considerably grown, just where the 



eggs had formerly been. Of course I am not sure they were the same, but 



it seemed probable ; and if they were, how did the parent bird remove them 



from one place to another? Having no nest, one bare spot upon the heath 



would answer their purpose as well as another, and yet it seemed strange 



they should return to their birth-place. — G. B. CoEBlN (Ring wood, Hants). 



Shoveller breeding in Suffolk. — At least one brood of young Shovellers 

 were reared last spring in the marshes near Leiston, where there is a large 

 bed of reeds. My brother saw a female bird with five young ones, " flyers," 

 on June 26th. They were swimming in a wide ditch close to the above- 

 mentioned reed-bed. As he has also seen several males about, there may 

 possibly have been more than one brood hatched out. — G. T. Rope ( Blaxhall, 

 Suffolk). 



The Plumage of the young Kestrel.— It does not seem to be generally 

 known that the sexes of the young of the Kestrel, Tinnuncuhts alaudarius, 

 can be distinguished in the first plumage, since a reference to the standard 

 works on British Birds by Montagu, Jenyus, Selby, Macgillivray (' Raptorial 

 Birds '|, and Yarrell (4th edition), would lead one to suppose that the young 

 of both sexes resemble the adult female until after their first winter. Sir 



