276 The Nightjar.


times make a chattering cry and a squeak, while its wings are

brought sharply over its back producing a clapping noise not.

unlike that of a Woodpigeon in flight, only louder and more

distinct. Anon the Nightjar will leave off chasing insects and

indulges in playful aerial gambols with its mate. A pair of birds

will haunt the same locality, year after year, arriving with due

regularity.


The favourite breeding grounds are on the Moors among

heather and fern, and in oak coppices where dry leaves strew the

ground, and the plumage so harmonizes with the surroundings

that a keen sight indeed is required to detect the crouching bird.

It will also perch on a bough, and contrary to the general rule,

along and not across it. If one should happen to flush the female

bird from her eggs she will perform that pretty stratagem peculiar

to many other birds, feigning a broken wing. Just as the birds'

plumage so blends with its surroundings, so do the eggs. It is

very often impossible to find them, and I once actually stepped

on one and broke it in my search. No nest is made, the eggs

being laid on the bare ground amid flinty chalky pebbles common

on moorlands. The eggs are perhaps the most beautiful of any

of our native birds, being white, and marbled with purple brown

and grey. The Nightjar is a late breeder and I have found fresh

eggs in the middle of July. The young when first hatched are

covered with down and are fed by the parents after the manner

of pigeons. Mr. Edmund Selous has shown that the use of the

wide mouth and row of bristles by which it is fringed is to engulf

the food when the bird is feeding on small insects.


In India a species of Nightjar closely allied to our bird —

which by the way is also found there — Caprimulgtis asiaticus, is

often known as " Ice Bird" from its note which exactly resembles

the sound made by a stone when thrown along a frozen pond,

while the Whip-poor-will (C vociferus) so called also on account

of its cry is well known. Nightjars inhabit all the warm and

temperate regions and are exclusively insectivorous. Our bird

rears but one brood in the season and leaves this country in

September.



