108 BRITISH BIRDS’ EGGS. 
Famity CAPRIMULGID-A. 
COMMON NIGHTJAR. 
CaPRIMULGUS EUROPEUS, Linn. 
Pl. XVI., figs. 14, 15. 
Geogr. distr.—Europe generally in the summer; as far eastward as 
Persia and Turkestan; migrating southward to Africa at the approach 
of winter: in suitable localities throughout Great Britain. 
Food.—Insects. 
Nest.—A mere depression in the ground. 
Position of nest.—LHither on open heaths or amongst trees. 
Number of eggs.—2. 
Time of nidification.—VI. 
The Nightjar arrives in Great Britain early in May, and 
leaves again in September. ‘‘It is,” says Seebohm, ‘“‘a 
late breeder, and its eggs are not usually deposited before 
the beginning of June. In some seasons they may be 
found as early as the end of May, but this is exceptional. 
It makes no nest, and deposits its eggs upon the ground, 
sometimes at the foot of a tree, in rare instances on a 
fallen trunk covered with moss and lichen, often in a slight 
depression on the far-stretching heathy wastes, but most 
commonly on a small, naked, flat patch of ground amongst 
the bracken and the brambles. Here the female deposits 
her two eggs ; and as incubation advances a little hollow is 
often worn into the earth by the incessant sitting of the 
bird, but no preparation is ever made. Only one brood 
appears to be reared in the year; but if the first clutch of 
eggs is taken or destroyed others are usually laid, and this 
accounts for the late eggs of the species that are sometimes 
found in July, and even in August.”—(Hist. Brit. Birds, i:., 
p. 318.) 
J. H. Gurney says :—‘‘ It has been doubted whether the 
Nightjar rears two broods in a season; that it generally 
does so in Norfolk I feel sure, the contrary opinion having 
perhaps arisen from the circumstance of its being so late a 
migrant. That the eggs at Causton” (taken 4th August) 
“were a second laying by birds which had had young 
previously, I think, as I saw four young ones at the same 
place able to fly on the 19th of the month previous (July). 
These would have been at least twenty-one days old (most 
likely older), and two of them were probably the first brood 
of the pair whose eggs Mr. Norgate and I found on 
August 4th.”—(Zool., 1888, pp. 429-30.) 
