OWLET NIGHTJAR. 
hair-like shafts to the feathers ; fore-neck, breast, and under wing-coverts tawny- 
buff, the feathers on the breast freckled with minute dark dots ; abdomen, flanks, 
thighs, and under tail-coverts silky-white with dark bases to the feathers ; under- 
surface of quills brown with pale mottlings ; lower aspect of tail pale brown barred 
and mottled with pale cinnamon. Eyes brown, feet creamy-brown, bill black. 
Total length 250 mm.; culmen 11, wing 141, tail 123, tarsus 23. Figured. 
Collected on Avergne Station, Northern Territory, on the 26th of June, 1902. 
Adult male. Similar to the adult female. 
Southern birds have dark greyish-brown instead of rufous in the general coloration. 
Fledgling, With down still adhering are like the above dark form. 
Nestlings. Are covered with white down. 
Nest. A hole in a tree hned with leaves. 
Eggs. Clutch, three or four, white 26’5 to 31 mm. by 21 to 23 (Victoria, October and 
November). 
Breeding-season. September to December. 
This beautiful little bird was not observed or collected by the party accom- 
panying Captain Cook, as far as we have any record, but it was secured by the 
settlers, and simultaneously appeared m the volumes of travel provided by 
Phillips and White. The former work. Voyage to Botany Bay, seems to have 
been published first, as the title page is dated 1789, the dedication Nov. 26, 
1789, and the latest date on a plate is Nov. 26, 1789. The bird was termed 
“ The Crested Goatsucker,” and the plate is dated Oct. 20, 1789. No Latin 
equivalent was provided by Phillips, but Latham incorporated the species 
in his Index Ornithologicus, Vol. II., p. 588, proposing Caprimulgus novcehol- 
landice for Phillips’ Crested Goatsucker, pi. opp. p. 270. The date of Latham’s 
work is 1790, but no exact date of publication is yet known, while it has been 
quoted as not appearing until 1791. At any rate, it must have been very late 
in 1790, and in the meanwhile White’s Journal Voyage New South Wales 
appeared, and on p. 241 The Crested Goat Sucker, Caprimulgus cristatus, was 
described, and a plate given opposite dated Dec. 29, 1789. This name seems 
to have absolute priority, and as an item of interest it may be recorded that 
White’s Journal was reviewed in the Gentleman^ s Magazine, Vol. LX., pt. n., 
p. 742, Aug., 1790, and in that periodical books were not reviewed immediately 
upon publication. 
Among the Watling drawings two of this bird were included, ah^ when 
Latham wrote up his Second Supplement to the General Synopsis Birds in 1801, 
under the New Holland G(oatsucker), p. 261, he observed: “In some drawings 
in possession of Mr. Lambert, 1 observed one very similar, though smaller; 
but does not seem to differ sufficiently to require a separate description.” 
He then included as a separate species the “ Banded G(oatsucker). Inhabits 
New South Wales, where it is called by the English, Musquito Hawh, a name, 
it must be remarked, the Goatsucker of North America is known by ; most 
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