xvni THE NIGHTJAR AND QUAIL 167 



own plumage in colour. In this manner the bird will allow a 

 person to approach nearly close to it before it moves, although 

 watching intently with its dark eye to see if it is observed. If 

 it fancies that you are looking at it, up it rises straight into the 

 air, and drops again perpendicularly in some quiet spot, with a 

 flight like that of an insect more than of a bird. With the 

 shades of evening comes its time of activity. With rapid and 

 noiseless flight the nightjar flits and wheels round and round 

 as you take your evening walk, catching the large moths and 

 beetles that you put into motion. Sometimes the bird alights 

 in the path near you, crouching close to the ground, or sits on 

 a railing or gate motionless, with its tail even with its head. 

 Frequently, too, these birds pitch on a house-top, and utter 

 their singular jarring noise, like the rapid revolving of a wheel 

 or the rush of water, and the house itself appears to be trembling, 

 so powerful is their note. It is a perfectly harmless, indeed a 

 useful bird ; and I would as soon wantonly shoot a swallow as 

 a nightjar. I admire its curiously-mottled plumage, and manner 

 of feeding and flying about in the summer and autumn evenings, 

 which make it more interesting when alive than it can possibly 

 be when dead. Often, when I have been fishing late in the 

 evening, has the nightjar flitted round, or pitched on a rock or 

 bank close to me, as if inclined to take an interest in what I 

 was at — confident, too, of not being molested. Its retreat in 

 the daytime is usually in some lonely wild place. Though 

 feeding wholly at night, I do not think that it is annoyed by 

 sunshine, as it frequently basks in an open spot, appearing to 

 derive enjoyment from the light and glare which are shining full 

 upon it ; unlike the owl, whose perch in the daytinie is in some 

 dark and shady corner, where the rays of the sun never pene- 

 trate. 



The quaiP is sometimes killed here, but very rarely. I 

 once shot a couple on the Ross-shire side of the Moray Firth, 

 but never happened to meet with one on this side, though I 

 have heard of their being killed, and also of their having been 

 seen in the spring-time, as if they came occasionally to breed. 



Another singular bird visits this country regularly in the 



' The quail is frequently killed in Morayshire, though in very small numbers. Every 

 autumn a few are seen, and during he spring I constantly hear them calling in the fields, 

 so that in all probability some few breed in this county. — C. St. J. 



