CAPRIMULGUS KELAARTI. 
(KELAARTS NIGHTJAR.) 
Caprimulgus indicus, Blytli, J. A. S. B. 1845, xiv. p. 208. 
Caprimulgus kelaarti, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1851, xx. p. 1 7 5 ; Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 11 1 
(1852) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1853, xii. p. 167 ; Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. 193 ; 
Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 421; Hume, Nests and Eggs, i. p. 97 (1873); Morgan, 
Ibis, 1875, p. 314; Bourdillon et Hume, Str. Feath. 1876, p. 381. 
Caprimulgus indicus , Jerdon, Cat. Madr. Journ. no. 251 ; 111. Ind. Orn. pi. 24 (1847). 
The Nilgherry Nightjar, Jerdon; The Newara-Elliya Goatsucker, Kelaart; Night-Hawk, 
Europeans in Central Province. 
Bim-bassa, Sinhalese, lit. “Ground-Owl”; Pay-marrettai, Tam., lit. “ Devil-bird.” 
Adult male. Length 10‘0 to 106 inches ; wing 7'0 to 7’5 ; tail 4-1 to 5-0 ; tarsus 0-6 ; middle toe and claw 0-8 to 
0-85; bill to gape 1-2 to 1-3. Expanse 22-4. 
Female. Length 9 - 5 to 10’0 ; wing 6'9 ; tail 4’6. 
Iris deep brown ; eyelid brownish yellow ; bill vinous brown, paler at the gape, the tip black ; legs and feet vinous 
brown, darker on the toes ; soles pale, claws blackish. 
Male. Light portions of head, back, and wings pale cinereous, finely pencilled with dark brown, and mottled on the 
hind neck, wing-coverts, and scapulars with white ; over the centre of the forehead and crown a broad black 
stripe ; feathers of the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts crossed with wavy marks of black ; the scapulars with 
velvety black centres and tips of an arrow-shaped or bar-like form set off by pale buff margins ; wing-coverts 
blackish brown, mottled on the inner webs with cinereous, and with a conspicuous terminal buff, dark-mottled spot 
on the outer webs; tertials with black mesial portions and boldly pencilled with dark brown; quills blackish 
brown, clouded with cinereous at the tips, and with a round white spot on the inner web of 1st primary and a 
broad bar across the next three, generally interrupted on the 2nd ; the outer quill indented with buff-white, 
tail black, the central feathers with mottled cinereous transverse spaces, the remainder with mottled, distinctly 
separated bars, and the four outer feathers with a large subterminal white spot. ... 
A white stripe from gape to beneath the ear-coverts ; across the throat a white band, interrupted in the centre and 
edged below w 7 ith rich ferruginous buff, which reappears on the sides of the neck, and is continued as a white 
tracing round to the centre of the hind neck ; throat, chest, and upper breast light cinereous, crossed with blackish 
pencillings, which on the low’er parts take the form of dark bands on a whitish ground ; belly and under tail- 
coverts w'hitish buff, the latter with a few brown bars. 
Female. Darker above and also on the chest than the male ; spots on the quills buff, of smaller size than in the male, 
and that on the 2nd quill interrupted in the centre ; the four outer tail-feathers wanting the w lite teimma spo s, 
and merely having a pale bar at the tips mottled with brown. 
Note. The group to which this species and C. indie, us belong is distinguished by having the tail, in the male, with 
the four outer feathers on each side terminated with a white spot and the tarsus feathered. 
Ohs. Jerdon first pointed out the differences between Southern Indian examples of this species and C. indicus. Blyth 
afterwards noticed them in 1845, loc. cit, in an example from the Nilghins, which he, however still recognized 
under the latter name. Subsequently, in 1851, he described the species from specimens sent from Ceylon by 
Dr. Kelaart as C. helaarti , finding these identical with his Nilghiri bird. It differs from C. indicus m its more 
cinereous or albescent hue compared with the rufous tint of the latter, and also in the more mottled black markings, 
which give it altogether a darker shade. It is likewise, at least so Blyth considered, a smaller bird. Of late years, 
however, Hume, from the evidence afforded by a large number of examples from different parts of India, finds 
that neither of these distinctions will hold good as regards peninsular birds, and remarks that every intei mediate 
link between the two typical forms occurs over all India. Some of the very smallest birds are rufous ones from 
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