138 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



NORTH AMERICAN GOATSUCKERS. 



Together with the Swifts and Hummingbirds, the Goatsuckers are 

 classed under the Order of Macrochires, which name certainly is no mis- 

 nomer, for it means odd ones and surely the differences between the 

 members of this order are sufficiently great to call it an odd one. 



The Goatsuckers {Cap? iimclgidae) or Night Jars, as they are often 

 called, constitute a very remarkable family. They first got their name 

 from traditional superstitions of European peasants. They are often 

 seen hovering about cattle (hence the mistaken notion of their sucking 

 goats), feeding upon the flies and other insects that molest them. 



Externally they bear some resemblance to the Swallows and Swifts, 

 as they have slender bodies and long, pointed wings similar to those 

 birds. The colors and markings of their plumage is strikingly similar 

 to that of some of the Owls and, on this account, they are sometimes 

 known as Owl Swallows and Fern Owls. There are about one hundred 

 species of Goatsuckers distributed throughout the temperate parts of 

 the globe; in the United States we get six species and as many sub- 

 species. Some of these are larger than the Crow while others are 

 nearly as small as a Sparrow. Their bodies, wings and tails are long, 

 their neck short, and their heads broad and flat; their eyes are very 

 large and prominent, and the bills very short and broad; the opening 

 extending back of the eye so that the gape is enormous, making a fly- 

 trap which, for efficiency cannot be equalled by any made by man. 

 Their feet are very short and small, very poorly adapted for perching 

 on limbs so the birds of this family usually sit lengthwise along limbs; 

 the middle toe-nail is pectinate, that is one edge is serrated like the 

 teeth of a comb. Their plumage is very soft and owl-like, usually rath- 

 er dark, and mottled and delicately marked with grays and wood 

 browns so as to render the birds very inconspicuous when in their nat- 

 ural environments. The colors of the different species are such as to 

 harmonize to the best advantage with their surroundings; those that 

 are found in dry desert regions are mottled with gray and white to 

 match the stones, while those inhabiting dense woods have a great deal 

 of reddish brown in their plumage. All of the species that are found 

 in northern countries migrate southward in the winter, but those inhab-. 

 iting tropical regions do not migrate, but at certain seasons leave their 

 usual forests and skim over the surrounding country. 



All of the Goatsuckers have ten feathers in their tails, but the shapes 

 of that member vary greatly, some having certain of the feathers great 

 ly lengthened; others have certain of the wing feathers lengthened. 



The development of the tail feathers is the greatest in the Lyre-tail- 



