CAPBIMULGUS ATBIPENNIS. 
(THE JUNGLE-NIGHTJAR.) 
Caprimulgus atripennis, Jerdon, 111. Ind. Orn. pi. 24, letterpress (1847); id. B. of Ind. i. 
p. 196 ; Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 421; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 12. 
Caprimulgus spilocercus, Gray, List Fissirostres Brit. Mus. p. 7 (1848) ; Hume, Stray leath. 
1873, p. 432. 
Caprimulgus maharattensis (Sykes), Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 11 i (1852) ; Layard, Ann. 
& Mag. Nat. Hist. 1853, xii. p. 166. 
Maharatta Goatsucker, apud Kelaart ; The Spotted-tailed Goatsucker, Gray. 
The Ghat Nightjar, Jerdon; Goatsucker, Night-IIawk;, Europeans in Ceylon. 
Bim-bassa (West Prov.), Ba-bassa, Omerelliya (South Province), Sinhalese ; Batliekai, lit. 
“ Roadside-bird,” Jaffna Tamils, also Pay-marrettai (Jerdon). 
Adult male. Length 10’6 to 11-0 inches ; wing 7‘0 to 7-2 ; tail 4-9 to 5-3 ; tarsus 07 ; middle toe and claw 0-95 to 
1-0 ; bill to gape l - 3 to l - 4. 
Adult female. Length 10-0 to 10-4 inches; wing 6-6 to 67. 
Iris deep brown ; eyelid pale reddish (yellowish in female) ; bill reddish brown, tip black ; legs and feet reddish brown 
or pale reddish, claws dusky brown. 
Male. Top of the head and upper part of hind neck cinereous brown, very finely stippled with grey, the feathers ol 
the centre of the crown and nape having broad black mesial stripes, the ground-colour of the latter part passing 
with a fei’ruginous hue on the hind neck into the blackish of the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts ; the margins 
of the feathers on these parts stippled with fulveseent grey, and the black confined chiefly to a cential stiipe ; 
scapulars very handsomely marked with oblique bands and spade-shaped patches of velvety black, the shorter 
feathers with oblique external margins of rich buff, the longer feathers being mostly grey near the tips, vermiculated 
with blackish; lesser wing-coverts blackish, mottled with ferruginous; anterior feathers of the remaining seiies 
black, marked with mottled spots of buff, and in some examples with white tips to many of the feathers ; inner 
secondary coverts mostly mottled with grey on a black ground, and with buffy white tips to some of the feathers ; 
primaries blackish brown, mottled at the tips with pale cinereous ; the 1st quill with a white spot on the inner 
web, and the next three with a white bar in continuation, interrupted on the 2nd quill at the centre; inner 
secondaries paler than the primaries, marked in places with ochraceous buff ; tertials mottled with cinereous grey 
at the tips : tail blackish brown, the four central feathers mottled with dusky fulvous, the two lateral feathers on 
each side black, with the terminal third white and the lateral margin tinged with buff, inner margins of all 
indented with buff. 
Lores and ear-coverts russet-brown, mottled with black ; rictal bristles black, with white bases ; chin and along the 
base of lower mandible mottled black and fulvous ; a thin white stripe at the gape ; across the throat a broad 
white band, its lower edge deeply margined with black, or, in some, barred with this hue and tipped with rufous- 
buff ; chest and upper breast cinereous, finely stippled with brown, and the latter part washed with a russet hue ; 
beneath this the under surface is fulvous, crossed with narrow bars of blackish brown, the centre of the breast 
being, in many specimens, slightly albescent ; under wing-coverts fulvous, cross-marked with brown. 
The scapulars vary much in this bird, scarcely any two examples having them marked the same ; in some individuals 
the broad oblique buff margins are almost entirely wanting ; the white tips of the wing-covert feathers likewise are 
variable. 
Female. Has not the scapulars so conspicuously marked as the male ; the wing-spots are buff or buffy white, small 
and bar-shaped, that on the 4th quill almost wanting ; two lateral rectrices on each side with a buff- white tip, 
varying up to half an inch in depth, or with the tip only mottled with buff (such examples being probably young) ; 
white throat-spot smaller than in male, ground-colour of lower parts duller. 
