NIGHTJAR 
4i 
inch in diameter; against the side of this the nest is glued, so that the upper margin 
of the nest is on a level with the upper surface of the branch. The nest itself 
is half of a rather deep saucer, T75 inches in diameter, and about 0 6 in depth 
internally. The nest is entirely composed of thin flakes of bark, cemented 
together by the bird’s saliva, and is about an eighth of an inch in thickness. The 
egg is a very elongated oval, obtuse at both ends, and with little or no gloss. It 
is white, with a slight greyish blue tinge, and measures 094 in length by 061 
in breadth.” 
The Nightjars. 
Family Cap him ul gidae. 
Like the swifts, these birds have very wide and gaping mouths; while their 
plumage is mottled and vermiculated, very much resembling that of the owls, near 
which group they have been placed in many classifications. Beyond the resem¬ 
blance of their plumage, and the fact that they are crepuscular birds, coming out 
to hunt for their prey in the twilight, there is, however, little in common between 
the two groups; the former being birds of prey, devouring chiefly animal food and 
laying white eggs, mostly in a concealed position in the hole of a tree; whereas 
the eggs of the nightjars are laid in the open, and are more or less spotted and 
marked. The number of both the primary quills and tail-feathers in the nightjars 
is ten; the palate is of the Passerine (segithognathous) type; and the third toe has 
a comb-like appendage to the claw, similar to that of the herons and barn-owls. 
The group may be divided into the two subfamilies Cciprimulgince and Nyctibiince, 
of which the latter contains only the single genus Nyctibius, while the former 
comprises upwards of eighteen genera, with ninety-five species. 
In common with the rest of their kind, the true nightjars have 
True Nightjars. q roa q p ea p thickly beset with strong bristles of considerable 
length; while they are specially distinguished by the difference in the sexes ; the 
males having a large patch of white on the quills and at the end of the tail- 
feathers, which are either absent altogether in the females, or are replaced by 
rufous ones. The nestlings are thickly covered with down, and form an exception 
to the general rule of young Picarian birds, which are naked when, hatched. 
To this genus belong most of the species of nightjars, including the British 
Capriraulgus europceus. They are found nearly all over the world, inhabiting 
both hemispheres, but never going very far north; and the only locality where 
they appear to be wanting is in some of the Eastern Pacific Islands. Of the two 
European species, the common nightjar shown in the upper figure of our illus¬ 
tration is a migrant from Africa, wintering in the Cape, and passing south 
apparently by the Nile Valley and East Africa, as it has not yet been recorded 
from the west coast. It visits Europe in summer, and breeds throughout the 
greater portion of the Continent, reaching to the latitude of Archangel, and to 
about 63° north latitude in Scandinavia. The plumage is of a dark, ashy- 
grey colour, closely vermiculated with black; the scapulars are longitudinally 
streaked with black and ochraceous buff; quills with a rufous-buff’ spot on both 
webs, the three outer primaries with a large white spot on the inner web; two 
