NYCTIBIUS GRANDIS, Vieillot 

 Grand Goatsucker. Latham. 



PLATE LXXXIX. 



N. albus, nigro, ochraceo, castaneo griseoque variegato, remigibus nigris pogonio 

 externo griseo altera e notato, interno fasciis griseis nigro commixtis ; cauda 

 ampla, nigro alboque pulcherrime variegata, coloribus in fasciis alternis clis- 

 tributis, colore fasciarum per rachim sequente. 



Grand Goatsucker; Caprimulgis grandis, Lath. Gen. Hist. vol. vii. p. 345. 

 Caprimulgus grandis, Gmelin's Linn. edit. 13. vol. i. part ii. p. 1029. — Shaw, Zool. vol. x. 



part i. p. 1 42. 

 Le grand Ibijau; Nyctibius grandis, Vieill. — Lesson, Manuel d'Ornithologie, tom. i. p. 412. 



In this and the two preceding plates, we have endeavoured to represent 

 three of the forms of the CaprimulgidcB, — Caprimulgus, Podargus, and 

 Nyctibius. In the first, of which we may mention the species of this coun- 

 try as typical, we have the characters of the group most fully developed. 

 Long and powerful wings, of a soft and downy texture, the necessary re- 

 quisites for a rapid and noiseless flight, and admirably adapted as accesso- 

 ries to an ample rictus, furnished with strong vibrissa? for the more easy 

 securing their insect prey, while the other parts of the frame of compara- 

 tively less utility to their general economy, are weak and inadequate for 

 any powerful exertion. In the next form, Podargus, we have all the parts 

 of greater strength, as if formed for seizing a stronger prey ; the bill strong 

 and broad, the rictorial bristles of less strength, and more inclining up- 

 wards, the plumage more rigid, the tarsi and feet also powerful, while the 

 center claw is destitute of any serrature. In our third form, the Nyctibius 

 of Vieillot, a genus yet consisting of a single individual, we have the 

 weak but ample rictus of the first, the bill however wanting the compara- 

 tive breadth, furnished with a strong tooth on the upper mandible, and en- 

 tirely destitute of rictorial vibrissae ; the tarsi short, the feet flattened, of no 

 great strength, and the centre claw without serratures ; the plumage of the 

 body soft and downy, but that of the wings, which are very long and pointed, 

 rigid as in birds of very powerful flight. The fourth group, Egotheles of 

 Messrs. Vigors and Horsfield, and which we shall endeavour to figure 



