THE NIGHTJAR. 
423 
on the tail of one, — said to denote the male bird, — were quite con- 
spicuous in the twilight. On the following evening we saw 
another between Innisfallen and Ross Island. 
Dr. J. L. Drummond informs me, that when H.M.S. San Juan 
(of which he was surgeon) was anchored near Gibraltar, in the 
spring of the year, a few nightjars flew on board. During the 
passage of H.M.S. Beacon, from Malta to the Morea, in April, 
1841, some of these birds appeared on the 27th about the ship 
and alighted. We were then about 50 miles from Zante (the 
nearest land) and 60 west of the Morea. They came singly, with 
one exception, when two appeared in company. A couple of 
them were shot in the afternoon. A few others had been seen 
about the vessel on the two or three days preceding. On the 
evening of the 1st of June, two were killed, and others seen, in the 
once celebrated but now barren and uninhabited island of Delos. 
White, in his History of Selborne, gives an extremely interest- 
ing account of the nightjar ; Sir Wm. Jardine very fully notes 
its various modes of flight ; in Macgillivray's British Birds, an 
ample description appears from the author, to which are added 
valuable contributions from Mr. Harley and Mr. Weir; the ob- 
servations of the former having been made near Leicester ; those 
of the latter at Bathgate, Linlithgowshire. The species has com- 
monly been seen by a sporting friend, about the wooded banks of 
the river Stinchar, in Ayrshire. 
Note to p. 206. Blue Tit, Parus coertileus . — Since the account of this bird was 
printed off, a very beautiful variety, worthy of especial notice, has been kiudly 
brought to Belfast for my examination, by the Rev. Gr. Robinson of Tandragee. It 
was shot in a wild state in the county of Armagh, in company with others of its 
species. It does not retain any of the ordinary colour. The entire under surface 
and the back, are of the richest canary yellow, with which the upper portion of the 
wings also, is partially tinged. The tail is pure white. The few first quills are white, 
the succeeding ones pearl-grey, but of a darker shade at the tips. The head is singu- 
larly parti- coloured with white, blue, greyish -brown, and canary-yellow. Bill, legs, 
and feet, of a whitish hue. 
