OWLET NIGHTJAR. 
Mr. J. P. Rogers noted at Melville Island: “Cooper’s Camp, Nov. 5, 
1911. One of these birds is heard occasionally, but have not seen it yet. 
Dec. 10, 1911. This species is heard in the daytime occasionally, usually on 
dull rainy days : the day-call is loud and harsh ; at night the call is s<^ueaky. 
Camp 10 miles S.E. of Snake Bay, Jan. 13, 1912. Some birds are heard 
calling every day. The weather was dull and rainy all the time I was at 
the north side. I believe the bird to be more numerous here than at Cooper’s 
Camp. In the west I alwaj^s found it in small hoUow trees : perhaps the reason 
of this was that it was easy to dislodge from the small trees, and difficult 
from the large ones, and I did not beat the large trees with an axe long 
enough.” 
Mr. Tom Carter has written me : “ This quaint little bird was occasionally 
noted in the cavities of cliffs of the North-West Cape ranges, and also in 
hollow ‘ spouts ’ of the White Gum trees on the inland creeks, but it was far 
from common. About Broome Hill and the timbered south-west it is numerous, 
but easily overlooked by those unacquainted with its habits. It spends 
the day in deep holes (small apertures, usually going upwards) in the trunks 
and branches of the trees, either growing or dead. On two occasions I have 
seen a bird sleeping in a hoUow log on the ground. Once I disturbed a 
fledgling, in broad daylight (10 a.m.), from a patch of rushes in one of 
my paddocks, and shot it, not knowing what it was. The adult birds make 
a peculiar shrill, chattering noise, somewhat like the cry of the Brown Hawk 
(leracidea), which is frequently heard in the daytime, and is caused by the 
bird coming to the aperture of its sleeping-place and vigorously scolding a 
Tree Creeper {Climacteris) or some other bird that has inadvertently disturbed 
its slumbers. I have read that some observers state that a sharp blow with 
an axe or stone on the trunk of a tree occupied by one, or a pair of these birds, 
will cause it to hastily emerge, but my experience is that it takes a very great 
amount of hammering to make it do this, in fact, it usually makes the bird 
sit tighter inside the tree. One of them, that was once frightened out of its 
hole by much throwing of sticks and stones, flew swiftly away, and perched 
in another tree, about eighty yards distant, with its body crossways to the 
small branch, and its feathers so compressed as to make it appear aboil^ half 
its usual size. In fact, I at first took it to be a Honey eater {Ptilotis ornata) 
and could not be sure of its identity until using my binoculars. When 
disturbed in the daytime these birds fly very swiftly, and often go straight 
to a hole in another tree, perhaps a hundred yards distant. The breeding- 
months appear to be August and September. Recently fledged birds were 
noted Sept. 27, 1908, Oct. 2, 1908, and Oct. 17, 1908. At this age they usually 
have peculiar ‘streamers’ of the nestling down adhering to the long bristles 
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