CAPBIMULGUS KELAARTI. 



(KELAART'S NIGHTJAR.) 



Caprimulgus indicus, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1845, xiv. p. 208. 



Caprimulgus kelaarti, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1851, xx. p. 175 ; Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 117 



(1852) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1853, xii. p. 167 ; Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. 193 ; 



Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 421 ; Hume, Nests and Eggs, i. p. 97 (1873) ; Morgan, 



Ibis, 1875, p. 314 ; Bourdillon et Hume, Str. Feath. 1876, p. 381. 

 Caprimulgus indicus, Jerdon, Cat. Madr. Journ. no. 251 ; 111. Ind. Orn. pi. 24 (1847). 

 The Nilgherry Nightjar, Jerdon ; The Newara-Elliya Goatsucker, Kelaart ; Night-Hawk, 



Europeans in Central Province. 

 Bim-bassa, Sinhalese, lit. "Ground-Owl"; Pay-marrettai, Tarn., lit. "Devil-bird." 



Adult male. Length 1O0 to 10-6 inches ; wing 7'0 to 7 - 5 ; tail 4-1 to 5-0 ; tarsus 0-6 ; middle toe and claw 0-8 to 

 0-85 : bill to gape 1-2 to 1-3. Expanse 22-4. 



Female. Length 9-5 to 10-0; wing 6-9 : tail 4-6. 



Iris deep brown ; eyelid brownish yellow ; bill vinous brown, paler at the gape, the tip black ; legs and feet vinous 

 brown, darker on the toes ; soles pale, claws blackish. 



Male. Light portions of head, back, and wings pale cinereous, finely pencilled with dark brown, and mottled on the 

 hind neck, wing-coverts, and scapulars with white ; over the centre of the forehead and crown a broad black 

 stripe ; feathers of the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts crossed with wavy marks of black ; the scapulars with 

 velvety black centres and tips of an arrow-shaped or bar-like form set off by pale buff margins ; wing-coverts 

 blackish brown, mottled on the inner webs with cinereous, and with a conspicuous terminal buff, dark-mottled spot 

 on the outer webs; tertials with black mesial portions and boldly pencilled with dark brown; quills blackish 

 brown, clouded with cinereous at the tips, and with a round white spot on the inner web of 1st primary and a 

 broad bar across the nest three, generally interrupted on the 2nd ; the outer quill indented with buff-white ; 

 tail black, the central feathers with mottled cinereous transverse spaces, the remainder with mottled, distinctly 

 separated bars, and the four outer feathers with a large subterminal white spot. 



A white stripe from gape to beneath the ear-coverts ; across the throat a white band, interrupted in the centre and 

 edged below with rich ferruginous buff, w'hich reappears on the sides of the neck, a?id is continued as a white 

 tracing round to the centre of the hind neck ; throat, chest, and upper breast light cinereous, crossed with blackish 

 pencillings, which on the lower parts take the form of dark bands on a whitish ground ; belly and under tail- 

 coverts whitish buff, the latter with a few brown bars. 



Female. Darker above and also on the chest than the male ; spots on the quills buff, of smaller size than in the male, 

 and that on the 2nd quill interrupted in the centre ; the four outer tail-feathers wanting the white terminal spots, 

 and merely having a pale bar at the tips mottled with brown. 



Note. The group to which this species and C. indicus belong is distinguished by having the tail, in the male, with 

 the four outer feathers on each side terminated with a white spot and the tarsus feathered. 



Obs. Jerdon first pointed out the differences between Southern Indian examples of this species and C. indicus. Blyth 

 afterwards noticed them in 1845, loc. cit., in an example from the Nilghiris, which he, however, still recognized 

 under the latter name. Subsequently, in 1851, he described the species from specimens sent from Ceylon by 

 Dr. Kelaart as C. kelaarti, finding these identical with his Nilghiri bird. It differs from C. indicus in its more 

 cinereous or albescent hue compared with the rufous tint of the latter, and also in the more mottled black markings, 

 which give it altogether a darker shade. It is likewise, at least so Blyth considered, a smaller bird. Of late years, 

 however, Hume, from the evidence afforded by a large number of examples from different parts of India, finds 

 that neither of these distinctions will hold good as regards peninsular birds, and remarks that every intermediate 

 link between the two typical forms occurs over all India. Some of the very smallest birds are rufous ones from 



2x 



