NIGHTJAR. 



337 



Una Nightjar : * Their mouths,' says Wilson, ' are capable of pro- 

 digious expansion, to seize their prey with more certainty, and fur- 

 nished with long- hairs or bristles, serving as palisades to secure what 

 comes between them. Reposing much during the heat of the day, 

 they are much infested with vermin, (Nirmi? Ornithomyice?^ particu- 

 larly about the head, and are provided with a comb on the inner edge 

 of the middle claw, with which they are often employed in ridding 

 themselves of these pests, at least when in a state of captivity.' 1 This 

 appears to settle the question." 2 " But again," says Mr. Swainson, 

 " to suppose that nature has given to one or two families of birds the 

 exclusive power of freeing themselves from an enemy, which in like 

 manner infests all birds, is preposterous." Yet, though he smiles at my 

 " simplicity," and alleges that I am " sometimes very unfortunate" 

 in my " speculations," 3 the simplicity must, in the present case, rest 

 with himself; for if the pectinated claws are bestowed on the Nightjars 

 and the herons to secure their prey, he ought, by his own argument, 

 to be able to show that all birds which feed on similar prey, such as the 

 swifts, have pectinated claws. 



The Nightjar, it would appear, is the butt of innumerable mistakes; 

 for though it feeds, like the bat, upon nocturnal moths and other night- 

 flying insects, the small birds shew, by the attacks they make upon it, 

 that they believe it to prey upon them, in the same way as they mis- 

 take the cuckoo for a hawk. The name also which it has received in 

 all languages, of Goat Sucker, (most absurdly continued by systematic 

 naturalists in the term Caprimulgus,) shews the opinion of it entertained 

 by the vulgar. It is, however, as impossible for the Nightjar to suck 

 the teats of cattle, (though most birds are fond of milk,) as it is for 

 cats to suck the breath from sleeping infants, of which they are popu- 

 larly accused ; inasmuch, as the structure of their organs would baffle 

 any such attempt. In another page we have shewn in what manner 

 the bird has been mistaken for a cuckoo.* 



The male makes a very singular noise during the period of cubation, 

 not unlike the sound of a large spinning wheel, and which it is observed 

 to utter perched, with the head downwards ; besides which it emits a 

 sharp squeak, repeated as it flies. 



The Nightjar is most plentiful in the wild tracts of uncultivated 



1 Amer. Orn. vi. 97. 2 J. Rennie in Mag. Nat. Hist. 296. 



3 Mag. of Nat. Hist. iv. 276. 



