WHITE-THROATED NIGHTJAR. 
eastern New South Wales, on October 27th, 1912, from which two birds 
were flushed. It was beneath a bush on sandy ground, just a few 
scattered leaves being about the spot, and it contained a newly hatched 
young bird, which was clothed in a mass of coffee-coloured down. Although 
I have seen great numbers of these birds at night, I have never yet heard 
them utter any note. From what little experience I have had with them 
during the daytime, I find they will allow themselves to be almost trodden 
upon before they will take wing, and then they usually only fly a short 
distance, but if marked down and followed up for a second inspection, 
they will flush before the intruder is within twenty yards of them. They 
have an extraordinary serrated formation along the inner side of the 
middle claw, somewhat resembling the gills of a fish, but even in life 
it is of a hard substance, but what this is used for I have never been able 
to discover. Upon handhng one of these birds, the first thing that 
struck me as peculiar was the extraordinary lightness of them, their weight 
did not appear to be much more than that I would have expected simply 
from a skin and feathers of a bird of this size.” 
Mr. J. W. Mellor has written me : “ The White-throated Nightjar is 
not a common bird on the Adelaide Plains, although I have often seen 
it at the Reedbeds, where it prefers country of a sandy nature, and 
well clothed with trees and bushes ; its habits are to settle on the ground, 
where there are a lot of leaves and sticks about, and here the coloration 
of its feathers so assimilate the surroundings that it can hardly be seen 
until one is close upon the bird and it is flushed and sails away with 
noiseless flight to settle again a short distance ahead. The feathers are very 
soft and downy, and so the flight is very noiseless, and it can catch its 
insect food vdth ease. It is nocturnal in its habits, sallying forth at 
dusk and setthng down to sleep on the ground before daybreak. It 
lays its single egg in the open, but this is so like the dusky ground upon 
which it is placed that with a few scattered spots upon the surface it 
can be seen only with great difficulty, and one may tread upon it before 
knowing it is near. I have seen the species on Eyre Peninsula in June, 
1911, in the Mallee country, where it was sitting on the ground and ros^e 
up hurriedly, only to drop again to the earth fifty to sixty yards ahead. 
During the dusk it can be seen sailing about after insects and moths in 
the open places between the trees, and over the low scrub.” 
Mj. F. E. Howe wrote me : “I have never seen this bird in the flesh, 
but it was heard round our camp fire at Carina in the Mallee scrub.” 
Mr. C. McLennan informed me that he has often flushed them during his 
peregrinations in this locality, adding that “ they rise from your very 
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