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PICARIAN BIRDS. 
outer tail-feathers also with a large white spot at the end of the inner web, 
under surface ochraceous buff, with blackish bars on the abdomen and the under¬ 
wing and tail-coverts; the breast marked like the upper surface of the body, and 
the throat blackish, narrowly barred with rufous buff, and spotted with white. 
The total length is 10^ inches. The red-necked nightjar ( C . ruficollis) is a larger 
bird, measuring 12 inches in length. It has large white spots on the epulis and 
outer tail-feathers, but differs in having the hind-neck rufous, forming a broad 
COMMON AND RED-NECKED NIGHTJARS (f nat. size). 
collar, which has gained the species its familiar name of red-necked. It inhabits 
the countries of South-Western Europe and Northern Africa, nesting in Spain, 
Algeria, and Morocco; migrating occasionally into Southern France; and it has 
even reached Great Britain on one occasion, but its winter-quarters are unknown. 
The food of the nightjar consists entirely of insects, in pursuit of which the bird 
may be seen flying over the heather or the fields in the twilight, often, as it flies, 
producing a clapping noise, apparently by striking its wings together above its 
back, like a pigeon. The “ churring ” note which the birds make is familiar to all 
