The Niglit-jar. 
209 
The range of the beautiful bird, the Hoopoe, is very 
extensive. It was known to the Greeks as well 
as to the Egyptians. Sir Thomas Browne tells 
us that this bird is seen in Norfolk— 
“ Yet we often meet witli it in this county. From the proper note 
it is called an hoopebird with us; we apprehend not the hieroglyphical 
considerations which the Egyptians made of this observable bird ; who, 
considering the order and variety of colors, the 26 or 28 feathers in its 
crest, and mewing this handsome outside in the winter, they made it 
an emblem of the varieties of the world, the succession of times and 
seasons and signal mutations in them. And therefore, Orus, the 
hieroglyphic of the world, had the head of an hoopebird upon the top 
of his staff.” (Yol. iv. p. 184.) 
Muffett, in his Healths Improvement (p. 100), writes:—■ 
“ Houpes were not thought by Dr. Torner to be found in England, 
yet I saw Mr. Serjeant Goodrons kill one of them in Charingdon Park, 
when he did very skilfully and happily cure my Lord of Pembroke at 
Ivy Church; they feed upon hurthe-berries, and worms, but delight 
to feed most upon graves.” 
The Goat-sucker or Night-jar, sometimes called a Night- 
hawk, must have been sufficiently common 
* Gr08*t“Siick©r* 
to attract notice by its noiseless, owl-like 
flight, and its weird monotonous cry. Its habits, however, 
are so retiring that there was little chance afforded to 
our forefathers of making observations that would be 
correct. 
Sir Thomas Browne, writing to Dr. Merritt, inquires, 
“ Have you a caprimulgus, or dorhawk: a bird as a 
pigeon, with a wide throat, as little as a titmouse, white 
feathers in the tail, and paned like a hawk ? ” (yol. i. p. 
399). Gilbert White, of Selborne, a naturalist who paid 
especial attention to the habits of this bird, writing still 
later, gives it the various names of churn-owl, fern¬ 
owl, eve-jarr, and puckridge. He ridicules the popular 
belief that existed in his day, and that still lingers in 
p 
