421 



THE NIGHTJAR. 



Goatsucker. Fern-Owl. 



Caprimulgus Uuropaus, Linn. 



Is a regular summer visitant to favourite localities in all 

 quarters of the island ; but of rare appearance 

 elsewhere. 



In the neighbourhood of Belfast it is very seldom seen. A vene- 

 rable sporting friend, who has been shooting here regularly in the 

 season for above sixty years, has not during that time met with a 

 dozen of these birds, although there are several districts appa- 

 rently well suited to them. In the wooded glen at the " Falls/' 

 one was observed by Mr. Win. Sinclaire and myself, some years 

 ago, perching lengthwise (as the species is well known to do), 

 instead of across the branch of a fine beech tree, then displaying 

 the tender and beautiful green of its young leaves. I am aware 

 of five only having been killed, within twelve miles of Belfast, 

 during the last twenty years. Of these, the first was shot at Bel- 

 voir Park, on the 28th of July, 1827 ; the second, in the summer 

 of 1835, in the district of Malone; the third, on the 25th of 

 September, that year, in Hillsborough Park ; the fourth, on the 

 1st of June, 1840, at Bangor Castle : its stomach was filled with 

 the remains of several individuals of the dor-beetle [Geotrupes 

 stercorarius) ; the fifth was killed near Langford Lodge, on the 1st 

 of June, 1843. The late George Matthews, Esq., informed me, that 

 in the district of the Ards, county of Down, the goatsucker has 

 not unfrequently been observed ; he had seen it on different occa- 

 sions at Springvale ; and a few have been shot about Echinville. 

 It is a regular summer visitant to the Mourne mountains, and 

 particularly to those in the vicinity of Tollymore Park.* The 

 gamekeeper there, stated in 1836, that he had frequently found 



* In Templeton's Catalogue of Vertebrate Animals (Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. i. new 

 series), this bird is noticed as " rare about Belfast ; but [not] uncommon at Mourne, 

 county Down." The not before " uncommon " was omitted in the printing of the 

 paper. 



