02 
PENNANT-WINGED NIGHT- JA It. 
Maerodipteryx Africanus , Swains. 
PLATE V. 
Wings as long as the tail ; the quills alternately banded with 
black and rufous ; between the primaries and secondaries, 
in one sex, a very long oar-shaped feather, webbed only at. 
its extremity. 
Caprimnlgus macrcdipterus, AfzeJitis , Dcscrip. Sierra Leon, pi. 
in ditto. — C. longipennis, Slum-, Nat. Miss. pi. 265. 
There are a few birds whose structure is altogethei 
so remarkable, and at the same time so destitute, as 
it were, of analogical resemblances to others, that 
the naturalist, unacquainted with their economy or 
manners, is completely at a loss to account for their 
peculiarity, and is obliged to content himself with 
mere conjectural ideas why Nature should have made 
them so dissimilar from all other birds. An in- 
stance is now before us, in the famous long-shafted 
goat-sucker, a bird first described by Afzelius un- 
der the name of Caprimulgus macrodipterus , but 
which we shall now consider as the type of a sub- 
genus in this extensive family, under the title of 
Macrodipteryx. 
A glance at the plate will at once show, to the 
most careless observer, the peculiarity of form, 
which not only distinguishes this remarkable bird 
