4 6 
PICARIAN BIRDS. 
well.” Mr. 0. N. Aplin found the eggs of this species in Uruguay; they were of 
a creamy pink colour, delicately marked with lines and veins of pinkish lilac, 
something after the manner of bunting’s eggs. “ On the 17th of March,” he writes, 
“ I saw a male with the long tail-feathers settle on a post of a wire fence which 
passed through part of the monte ; 1 it sat lengthwise to the line of fence. The 
curious long swallow-tail of the male does not seem to incommode it at all, as the 
bird can turn and twist about in its rapid gliding flight in a wonderful way, and 
accomplishes the difficult aerial navigation of the thorny monte with all the ease 
and grace of our nightjar in an oak-wood.” 
Nacunda Night- The single representative of this genus ( Podager nacunda ) 
J ar - differs from all the preceding, in the slight development of the 
bristles of the gape, as well as by the shortness of the tail, which only equals 
about half the length of the wing. The general plumage is of the usual mottled 
hue, but the tail is distinctly barred; while the primary quills are conspicuously 
white, and the secondaries lighter brown, with blackish brown bars and vermi- 
•culations; the central tail-feathers being like the back, with broad white tips to 
the outer ones; the abdomen and under tail-coverts white; the lores and upper 
throat reddish, with blackish brown bars; the chin almost uniform rust-colour; 
and the lower throat very dark brown, the breast being similar to the upper- 
parts. The length is 1H inches. Mr. W. H. Hudson writes that “the specific 
name of this goatsucker is from the Guarane word nacundd, which Azara tells 
us is the Indian nickname for any person with a very large mouth. In the 
Argentine country it has several names, being called dormibu (sleepy-head), or 
duerme-duerme (sleep-sleep), also gallina riega (blind hen). It is a large handsome 
bird, and differs from its congeners in being gregarious, and in never perching 
on trees or entering woods. It is an inhabitant of the open pampas. In Buenos 
Aires and also in Paraguay, according to Azara, it is a summer visitor, arriving 
at the end of September and leaving at the end of February. In the love-season, 
the male is sometimes heard uttering a song or call, with notes of a hollow 
mysterious character; at other times they are absolutely silent, except when dis¬ 
turbed in the daytime, and then each bird, when taking flight, emits the syllable 
kuf in a hollow voice. When flushed, the bird rushes away with a wild, zigzag 
flight, close to the ground, then suddenly drops like a stone, disappearing at the 
same moment from sight as effectually as if the earth had swallowed it up, so 
perfect is the protective resemblance in the colouring of the upper plumage to the 
ground. In the evening, they begin to fly about earlier than most Caprimulgi, 
hawking after insects like swallows, skimming over the surface of the ground and 
water with a swift, irregular flight; possibly the habit of sitting in open places, 
■exposed to the full glare of the sun, has made them somewhat less nocturnal than 
■other species that seek the shelter of thick woods or herbage during the hours of 
light. After the breeding-season they are sometimes found in flocks of forty or 
fifty individuals, and will spend months on the same spot, returning to it in equal 
numbers every year. One summer a flock of about two hundred individuals 
frequented a meadow near my house, and one day I observed them rise up very 
•early in the evening and begin soaring about like a troop of swallows preparing to 
1 The Argentine term for the small woods surrounding so many of the settlements on the pampas. 
