102 Order II 



quite a ghostly impression in the twilight, when it 

 comes out to hawk for the moths and other insects 

 on which it feeds. The female is said to make a less 

 jarring sound; she lacks the white spots on wing 

 and tail. Country-folk consider it a kind of Hawk, 

 and keepers can with difficulty be persuaded how 

 harmless and beneficial the bird is. In the day-time 

 the Nightjar is seldom seen unless flushed from cover, 

 but occasionally it suns itself on some bough or fence, 

 along and not across which it crouches. It comes to 

 us as late as mid-May and leaves about September, 

 during which months it is somewhat local, as it requires 

 wild woodlands, gorse-covers, heather, or bracken in 

 which to breed. No nest is made, but two pretty 

 white eggs mottled with brown and grey are deposited 

 in a depression of the soil. In suitable localities 

 abroad it ranges in various forms from temperate 

 Europe to north Africa and mid-Siberia. The ancients 

 fancied that the bird sucked goats dry, and called it 

 by names equivalent to our term Goatsucker. 



Family PICID.^, or Wcodpecker Tribe 

 Stjbfamily lynginae, ob Wrynecks 



The Wryneck [lynx torquilla) is another soft- 

 plumaged species with grey, brown, and bufE coloration, 

 which is closely allied to the Woodpeckers. It is often 

 called the Cuckoo's Mate, as it arrives simultaneously 

 in April, but it is not now so well known as formerly, 

 as it is decreasing in numbers in many places. In 

 the north of England it was always rare, while it has 

 never been proved to have bred in Scotland or Ireland. 

 Abroad it is less common in southern than northern 

 Europe in summer, though it ranges to Japan, and 



