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Colonel Irby, on the faith of Fabier, says the Nightjars cross the Straits of Gibraltar on their southward journey from September to November; so these late stayers in Cornwall and Guernsey have not much time to complete their journey if they intend going as far south as the coast of Africa; perhaps, however the Guernsey ones have no such intention, as Mr.
No moths are abroad yet; it is too early in the year for nightjars; and the owls are quiet. But who shall say that in this silence, in this hovering wan light, in this air bereft of wings, and of all scent save freshness, there is less of the ineffable, less of that before which words are dumb?
It is this habit of seeking their insect food only in the gloaming which makes nightjars among the most difficult of birds to study from life, and all accounts of their feeding habits must therefore be received with caution, particularly that which compares the bristles on the mouth with baleen in whales, serving as a sort of strainer for the capture of minute flying prey.
The country was very wild all round, with tracts of heath and sand. The melodious buzzing of nightjars in hot mid-summer evenings, as they swept softly along the heather, lived constantly in his memory.
The terrestrial dances, often very elaborate, of heavy birds, like those of the gallinaceous kind, are represented in the more volatile species by performances in the air, and these are very much more beautiful; while a very large number of birds hawks, vultures, swifts, swallows, nightjars, storks, ibises, spoonbills, and gulls circle about in the air, singly or in flocks.
Nightjars are as large as pigeons. For a couple of hours after nightfall, and the same period before dawn in the spring, this bird utters its curious call a rapidly-repeated cuck-chug-chuck-chuck. A bird which after dark makes a noise like that produced by striking a plank with a hammer can be none other than this species. It betrays its presence by its loud ku-il, ku-il, ku-il.
Sclater, P.L., on modified secondary wing-feathers in the males of Pipra; on elongated feathers in nightjars; on the species of Chasmorhynchus; on the plumage of Pelecanus onocrotalus; on the plantain-eaters; on the sexes and young of Tadorna variegata; on the colours of Lemur macaco; on the stripes in asses. Scolecida, absence of secondary sexual characters in.
Thus he proceeded, like Aeneas with his father; the bats circling round his head, nightjars flapping their wings within a yard of his face, and not a human being within call. While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited signs of restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as if his arms were irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and looked around.
When he extinguished the lamp and lay down in bed it was pleasant, after the heat in Rohar, to find it so cool that he was obliged to pull a blanket over him. Only those who have endured the torment of hot nights in the tropics can appreciate his thankfulness as in the silence broken only by the monotonous cry of the nightjars he drowsed contentedly to sleep.
Comparatively small as are these wonderful performers, their voices made a considerable item in the evening concert. Before they had ceased, the tree-frogs chimed in with their "Quack, quack! drum, drum! hoo, hoo!" accompanied by melancholy nightjars, which for long kept up their monotonous cries.
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