XXX. 



CAPRIMULGUS EUROP^US. (linn.) 



Night Hawk, Night Jar, Fern Owl, &c. 



The Night Hawk is most common in those open and 

 moorland tracts of country immediately surrounding a more 

 cultivated and woody district. In such situations it deposits 

 its eggs without any nest whatever, amongst heath, fern, and 

 long grass, or in a slight hole upon the bare ground, never 

 far from the neighbourhood of woods, to which it seems very 

 partial ; its eggs being also frequently found in open grassy 

 spaces, and drives occurring in the midst of them ; they are 

 two in number, very beautifully mottled, and, in some in- 

 stances, very closely resembling marble ; their shape is also 

 peculiar, being nearly a perfect oval. 



Many errors have occurred respecting this bird, it having 

 been frequently mistaken for the Cuckoo. Though the young 

 Cuckoo bears some resemblance to the Night Hawk, yet it 

 would be a very difficult matter to confound the two birds in 

 a state of maturity, the one being very light, and almost of 

 an uniform ash-colour, the other very dark, and richly co- 

 loured throughout. Yet this mistake has been fallen into by 

 the Rev. Mr. Stafford, and also by the Rev. Mr. Wilmot, of 

 Derbyshire, who, in a letter to Dr. Darwin, evidently and 

 most undoubtedly, describes the nest of the Night Jar as that 

 of the Cuckoo, though he approached so near as to observe 

 her some time, and almost to touch her before she rose from 

 the nest. 



The American species of this genus, of which Wilson has 

 given such interesting descriptions, all closely resemble ours 

 in their mode of breeding. 



In Audubon's Ornithological Biography^ a most singular 

 account is given of a bird of this genus, the Caprimulgus 



