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The forests of Borneo harbour more than 450 species of birds, many of them being of gorgeous colouring or strange and beautiful forms; especially noteworthy are many hawks, owls, and eagles, fly-catchers, spider-hunters, sun-birds, broad-bills, nightjars, orioles, miners, pigeons, kingfishers, hornbills, trojans, magpies, jays, crows, partridges, pheasants, herons, bitterns, snipes, plovers, Curlews, and sandpipers.
Fred's way across the fields to the Manor was among sweet autumn scents, and with moth and bird taking his attention at almost every step. The white owl was out, with its peculiar grating cry; so was the tawny owl, breaking forth into its loud hail hoi-hoi-hoi! Skimming about the oak-trees he saw the nightjars again, every swoop meaning death to some unfortunate moth or beetle.
And presently from the bushes close by, just beyond the weedy, forlorn little "orchard," sounded the rich, full, throbbing prelude to the nightingale's song, and that powerful melody that in its purity and brilliance invariably strikes us with surprise seemed to shine out, as it were, against the background of that diffused, mysterious purring of the nightjars, even as the golden disc of the moon shone against and above the darkening skies and dusky woods.
Nightjars, or goatsuckers, to give them their ancient and time-honoured name, are birds that lie up during the day in shady woods and issue forth at dusk on silent wing in order to hawk insects.
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.
The bird-stuffer in Alderney had some wings of Nightjars nailed up behind his door which had been shot in that Island by himself. Professor Ansted includes the Nightjar in his list, but only marks it as occurring in Guernsey and Sark. There are two specimens, a male and female, in the Museum, but no date as to time of their occurrence. SWIFT. Cypselus apus, Linnaeus.
Nightjars, noise made by some male, with their wings; elongated feathers in. Nilghau, sexual differences of colour in the. Nilsson, Prof., on the resemblance of stone arrow-heads from various places; on the development of the horns of the reindeer. Nipples, absence of, in Monotremata. Nitsche, Dr., ear of foetal orang. Nitzsch, C.L., on the down of birds. Noctuae, brightly-coloured beneath.
Thenceforth, however, their programmes are wholly divergent, for, whereas the nightjars proceed to scatter over the length and breadth of Britain, penetrating even to Ireland in the west and as far north as the Hebrides, the nightingale stops far short of these extremes and leaves whole counties of England, as well as probably the whole of Scotland, and certainly the whole of Ireland, out of its calculations.
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