96 Animal Life 
so like a bunch of withered leaves 
that had I not followed its flight with 
my eye, I should have lost track of 
it. I picked it up and placed it inside 
my cricketing shirt, and carried it: for 
three and a half hours, On arrival 
at home I offered it a large noctwid 
caterpillar from the cabbage-patch, but 
as it showed no knowledge of picking 
for itself, I gently opened it mouth 
and dropped the grub down its throat. 
It appeared to take this little attention 
as being quite in the natural course 
of things, and gulped down the larva 
into its crop. The bird then sat 
quiescent for hours upon the doormat, 
with its eyelids all but closed, and 
showing no desire to escape through 
the wide-open door. In the evening 
I saw an old nightjar flying over the 
garden, and imagined this might be 
its parent that had followed us home ; 
so I placed the young one upon the 
tiled roof, wp which it quickly sped 
to the eaves of a higher roof at a 
right angle with the lower one, and 
there it stayed until late. Next 
morning it had gone, and I concluded that the old bird had induced it to depart. 
Two evenings later, however, our neighbour, Billy, the keeper, said to me, “I know 
where your eve-jar is,’ and he led me to the sandy road just outside the garden 
fence. There, in a rut, lay the nightjar, but on our approach it rose up and wheeled 
across the garden. For about a month the bird haunted the garden and the fern-clad 
slope outside it, occasionally showing itself by day when it was flushed from among the 
cabbages or from beneath the leaves of the marrow bed. In the evenings it frequently 
circled about the garden, uttering a modified “wi-ep,” but it had not acquired the power 
to “chur.” I was delighted to note its constancy, for the bird had been quite 
friendly and fearless whilst in my possession, and had even kindly allowed me _ to 
photograph it without resenting my action. The photograph of the bird among the 
heather, and that showing how it harmonises with the bark of an old oak, were both 
taken with the aid of this obliging individual, who was entirely unfettered and could 
have made a successful dash for liberty an he would. 
When speaking of the nightjar’s varied names in the vernacular, I omitted 
perhaps its best known, though an utterly misleading one—goat-sucker. This is an 
exceedingly ancient name, and was given to it in ignorance of its true nature and 
habits. It was doubtless suggested to the Ancients on seeing the bird flying low 
about their herds of goats what time it was scooping up the beetles and other flying 
insects. Man is a suspicious creature and is 
ever lmagining that the other animals are getting 
some advantage over him. Przing milk and La 
despising moths and beetles as food, he attributed ds 
identical tastes to the nightjayr. =n areas 
THE HAUNT OF THE NIGHTJAR. 
