WHITE-THROATED NIGHTJAR. 
of those I shot were gorged with insects, principally coleoptera and locusts, 
some of which were entire, and so large as to excite surprise how they could 
be swallowed ; in several instances they were so perfect that I preserved 
them as specimens for the cabinet. Of its nidification I have no reliable 
information to furnish ; but that it deposits a single egg on the bare ground 
is very probable. Contrary to what might have been expected, I found that 
although the sexes are nearly alike in colour, the females always exceed the 
males in size and in the brilliance of the tints ; the males, on the other hand, 
have the two white spots on the third and fourth primaries more conspicuous 
than in the female. This species has very large and lustrous black eyes, 
which clearly indicate that it is a nightflier ; its wings are very long ; its 
tarsi short and partially feathered ; and the stiff rictal bristles of the typical 
Caprimulgi are absent.” 
Captain S, A. White has written me : “ This was a common bird at the 
Reedbeds not so many years ago, but they have now disappeared. The last 
one which came under my notice was in 1915. They sit upon the ground in 
the daytime and become an easy prey to domestic cats. I met Avith them in 
nujnbers in the Mallee country in 1916, and have heard them caU at night 
in the interior, but never succeeded in takuig a skin ; they hawk at night, 
starting just at dusk.” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby has sent me the following for criticism, under date 
July 25, 1917 : “ I have only handled four specimens referable to this genus. 
The first was sent me by Mr. C. E. May from Anson Bay, Northern Territory, 
and is now in your collection. The late Mr. A. J. North commented on this 
specimen as follow^s : ‘ The white spots on the outer-web of the third and 
fourth primaries are absent.’ The second was sent me in the flesh from CovTa 
Creek, near Bredbo, New South Wales, and on skinning it was found to be a 
female in which the white spots on the primaries are absent. This specimen 
you also have. The gentleman who sent it me told me that this species 
visited their district only for a part of the year and invariably used to perch 
in the early night-time on the chimney of their cottage, making its pecufiar 
call. From the locahties one would expect the foregoing to be referable to 
E. mystacalis. The third was shot by myself in the Mallee country that lies 
between the River Murray and the Victorian border. Head of Ettrick, on 
Sept. 28, 1911. I shot it on the border of the Mallee in a wheat paddock. 
Immediately on death five cockchafer beetles crawled up the gullet and out 
of the mouth, none the worse for their temporary imprisonment. I slept 
out one night in the bush in the adjoining hundred a little later in the year 
and heard these birds calling in all directions after dark. One would conclude 
that there must have been at least half a dozen birds c allin g. My fourth 
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