CAPRIMULGTJS KELAAETT. 339 



of the two following species, as it lies very close and does not repose in open spots like the Common 

 Nightjar. 



Dr. Jerdon writes, in his 'Birds of India/ that " it is now and then flushed from the woods when beating 

 for game ; and more than one has fallen before the gun of the inexperienced sportsman, its extent of wing and 

 the lazy flapping having caused it to be mistaken for the Woodcock." I have myself observed this peculiarly 

 lazy flapping, which is not the usual mode of progression, at sunset, and several times have heard the strange 

 sound which the bird makes, resembling the beating of an immense fan or wing in the air : whether this is caused 

 by the motion of its pinions, or by the utterance of a guttural note, I am unable to say ; but much as it resembles 

 a mechanical effect, it is doubtless the result of some curious vocal power in the bird. Its food consists' almost 

 entirely of beetles, of which it consumes immense numbers, its stomach being crammed with these, one would 

 think, indigestible insects at an early hour in the evening. It is worthy of remark that the majority of 

 specimens procured of this species are males : what becomes of the females in the evenings it is hard to say ; but 

 one thing is certain, that they keep out of the way and are seldom shot, except when flushed in the daytime 

 from their nests or in company with a young brood. 



Nidification. — Mr. Holdsworth remarks that the breeding-season about Nuwara Elliya commences in 

 March and April. Its eggs appear to be seldom found; and the only instance of their being taken that ever 

 came under my notice was related to me by a gentleman in Haputale, who informed me that his sons some- 

 times procured them on the estate. In India they are well known. In the Nilghiris and Central Provinces, 

 according to Mr. Hume's correspondents in ' Nests and Eggs/ it commences to breed in March and continues 

 to lay until August. The eggs are deposited " in a slight depression under a bush or tuft of grass ; " but thev 

 have been found, Mr. Davison relates, in a heap of ashes produced by the Burgas burning weeds in their fields. 

 The eggs are two in number, and are said to be counterparts of those of the closely allied C. indicus ; they are 

 of a pale yellowish or salmon ground-colour, marbled with brown among blotches of a lighter shade, which 

 sometimes resemble a darker tint of the ground-colour; they are long ovals in shape, and "vary from 1'08 

 to D23 inch in length, and from - 8 to 09 inch in breadth." 



Mr. Rhodes Morgan on one occasion found the eggs deposited on a heap of ashes ; he describes them as 

 of a " pinkish buff, blotched with pale violet-brown/' 



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