110 CLASS AVES. 



» 

 himself within sight of the eggs in a tree. The female first 



came to them after they had been handled by him, and flying 

 to the ground a short distance from the eggs, approached 

 them gently step by step, and having ascertained that they 

 had been touched (by what faculty it does not appear), she 

 walked several times round them, with her beak close to the 

 eggs ; she then uttered several cries, at the same time resting 

 on her breast, and beating the ground with the wings ; this 

 seemed to bring the male bird, which immediately com- 

 menced the same cry, and the same operations ; after which 

 they both flew a few times round the eggs, and then sud- 

 denly each took one in the mouth, and disappeared on the 

 wing. 



M. Levaillant found another species of goatsucker in South 

 Africa, remarkable for its size — this Avas the Fork -tailed 

 Goatsucker. This character of tail is unique in this genus. 

 Of all the different species mentioned by nomenclators, this 

 one alone has the tail of this form. It is six-and-twenty 

 inches long from the point of the bill to the extremity of the 

 longest feather of the tail, which is the last lateral one on 

 each side. The bill of this large goatsucker is of an enor- 

 mous width, and terminates in a small hook, more resembling 

 a talon, than the end of a bird's bill. A proof how little it was 

 the intention of nature that these birds should engulph a quan- 

 tity of wind, when in pursuit of insects, is that there is no bird 

 whose mouth is so firmly closed. In fact, the construction of 

 the bill is so managed, that the lower mandible covers the 

 upper at the corner of the mouth by a small projecting edge, 

 and the upper, by a sort of lid, covers again the lower, 

 which last is firmly enclosed as far as a very marked notch 

 about the middle of the upper. After this notch, the upper 

 mandible grows suddenly very narrow, and emboxes itself in 

 the lower, which is conformed to receive it with a proper edge, 

 and is itself finally surmounted by the end of the upper one, 

 which holds it firmly, and curves beyond it in the form of a 



