230 THE WORLD OF ANIMAL LIFE 



them. But it is really catching flies, which annoy cattle by night 

 as well as by day, so that it is performing a useful act, and not a 

 mischievous one. 



In another way, too, it is of great service. In the early summer 

 you may have seen a great number of yellowish-brown, hairy beetles 

 flying round the tops of small trees at dusk. At times they are in 

 such numbers that they look like a swarm of bees; and if you catch 

 one you find that it is not unlike a small cockchafer. 



It not only looks like a cockchafer, but is quite as mischievous ; 

 for the fat white grub which produces this beetle lives for three 

 long years under the ground, and eats the roots of our crops. Now 

 the nightjar is very fond of this beetle, and destroys it in great 

 numbers, besides killing many other insects which are troublesome 

 in our fields. So it is a very good friend to us, and we ought to 

 protect it, instead of trying to destroy it. 



In order to enable it to catch these large insects, the beak of 

 the nightjar is formed in a very singular way. It is so very wide 

 that when the bird opens it its head seems almost to be divided in 

 two. Then its tongue is very sticky, like that of the toad and the 

 frog, so that, if an insect once touches it, it is actually caught. 



Besides this, at either side of the beak are a number of stout 

 bristles, which make a kind of fence, and quite prevent a prisoner 

 from passing through them. Thus even a large strong beetle like 

 the cockchafer, when once it is seized by the nightjar, has no chance 

 of escaping. 



The nightjar does not make a nest like most birds, but lays two 

 white eggs, mottled with brown, on the bare ground, underneath a 

 bush or a clump of ferns. It does not stay in this country all 

 through the year, for it cannot find any food during our cold winter. 

 Early in autumn, therefore, it flies away over the sea to a warmer 

 country, and does not come back again until late in the following 

 spring. 



THE KINGFISHER (Family Alcedinid^) 



To see a Kingfisher in his native haunt and engaged in his 

 daily fishing is a sight not easily forgotten. He flits rapidly hither 



