7ti WILD Lll-K IN CHINA. 



A very strange and curious bird, more or less intimately 

 related to the swifts, is the night-jar. All sorts of extra- 

 ordinary stories have been told of this interesting bird. His 

 name of "goat-sucUer" (Cfl'/>/';/;iH/g«s is his classic denomina- 

 tion: literally the "goat milker") hints at one of them. We 

 need not wonder why such mai-vellous beliefs arise. The 

 night-jar, as his name implies, is not a bird which makes his 

 appearance common by showing himself in daylight. At the 

 present time, if I happen to be awake in the night or to rise, 

 about break of day, I am sure to hear the ''churr" of this 

 interesting bird, the "jar" part of his name being merely an 

 attempt at the representation of his call. He indulges in this 

 quite frequently, and in so characteristic a manner that it 

 can never be mistaken. In thirty-five years the times which 

 r have seen him might perhaps be counted on the fingers of 

 one hand. Once, probably frightened from his day sleeping 

 place, one came and alighted on my verandah rail taking his 

 usual position longitudinally along it. He was approached 

 near enough for the beautiful protective markings of his 

 plumage to be noted, the dark ashy grey of the breastwith a 

 close mottling of black, the mixtta-e of browns and blacks on 

 the back so cleverly combined as to make the wearer indis- 

 tinguishable when in his natural position on the limb of a 

 tree. There on the verandah rail the unnatural swelling was 

 conspicuous enough, however close to the wood the bird 

 might snuggle down. 



On another occasion, and quite by accident, 1 saw one 

 in his own chosen resting place. Just as in a puzzle picture 

 one may look for something for an hour without seeing it, 

 and then all of a sudden catch the outline and wonder how it 

 was possible to look at all without seeing from the beginning, 

 so with my second night-jar. I caught sight of him in a flash, 

 as he was resting on the thick branch of a tree. It was broad 

 daylight at the time. One might have passed a score of times 

 and not seen him, so perfectly did his body and its colouring 

 represent a knot on the upper surface of. the branch. For 

 some minutes I stood in mute admiration, the night-jar evi- 

 dently having perfect faith in his invisibility as a bird, and not 

 meaning to "give himself away" by moving. So I stood and 

 watched, taking in all that the eye could see. Moving a little 

 nearer, and still keeping my eye fixed on him, he began to 

 show signs of disquiet and, as birds strongly object to being 

 stared at, he by and by flew off. 



On still another occasion I watched one in the dusk of the 

 evening hawking for moths over a cotton field. That was in 

 late September when moths were in great plenty. With all 

 the swiftness of the swallow, the night-jar, thanks to his size 

 and colour, looi^s a little like a hawk. His enormously wide 



