In colour this bird resembles a large moth, being most beautifully and delicately streaked and mottled with various shades of black, brown, grey, and buff, but in appearance it is not unlike a hawk, having long pointed wings more than seven inches in length, and a tail about five inches long. The male differs from the female in having a large heart-shaped spot upon the inner web of the first three quill feathers, and broad white tips to the two outer tail feathers on each side.

The mottled brown appearance of the bird when reposing either on the ground or on the limb of a large tree, is admirably adapted to screen it from observation even within a few yards of the observer. It delights in furzy commons, wild heathery tracts, and broken hilly ground covered with ferns, particularly in the neighbourhood of woods and thickets, and is especially partial to sandy soils. I have frequently seen this bird upon the bare sand, either in a sandpit or under the lee of a furze-bush, where it appeared to be basking in the sun, and from the disturbed appearance of the soil in some places, I imagine that it dusts itself as the Skylark does, to get rid of the small parasites with which, like many other birds, it is infested. On the 16th of May this year, at Uppark, Sussex, I found one asleep on the carriage drive within twenty yards of the house. The gravel was quite warm, and the bird was so loth to be disturbed that I almost succeeded in covering it with my hat before it took wing. On another occasion in September, when strolling along the beach near Selsea, I came suddenly upon a Nightjar sitting below high-water mark on the warm shingle, where it appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the afternoon sun. It dozes away the greater part of the day, and if disturbed only flies a short distance before re-alighting. Its loud and peculiar whirring note, reminding one of the noise made by a knife-grinder’s wheel, is never heard until the evening, when, in districts where the bird is common, it resounds far and near.

There is something occasionally quite ventriloquial in the sound, caused by the bird turning its head from side to side, both up and down, and scattering, as it were, the notes on every side.

It makes no nest, but scraping a hollow on the bare ground deposits two ellipse-shaped eggs beautifully mottled with two shades of grey and brown, and quite unlike those of any other British bird. The young are hatched in about a fortnight or rather more, and until fully fledged their appearance is singularly ugly. They are covered with a grey down, and their enormous mouths and large prominent eyes give them an expression which is almost repulsive. By pegging the young down with long “jesses,” as one would a Hawk, I have secured them until fully fledged, the old birds feeding them regularly; but on taking them home and turning them into an aviary I could not succeed in keeping them long alive, owing to the difficulty in procuring suitable food, and my inability to give them constant attention.

During the month of September, when shooting amongst low underwood and felled timber, I have not unfrequently disturbed a Nightjar, and on such occasions, when flying away startled, its flight so much resembles that of a Hawk that I have twice seen a keeper shoot one, exclaiming, “There goes a Hawk!” I was not a little surprised one day at finding one of these birds in the middle of a turnip-field. We had marked down some birds at the far end, and the dogs were drawing cautiously on when one of them flushed a Nightjar, which my friend immediately shot—in mistake, as he afterwards said, for a Woodcock.

Notwithstanding what has been said to the contrary, the Nightjar, Night-hawk, Fern Owl, or Goatsucker, as it is variously called in different parts of the country, is one of the most inoffensive birds imaginable. By farmers it is accused of robbing cows and goats of their milk, and by keepers it is remorselessly shot as “vermin;” but by both classes its character is much maligned. Its food is purely insectivorous, and it is as incapable of sucking milk as it is of carrying off and preying upon young game birds. The mistake in the former case must have arisen in this way. The habits of the bird are crepuscular. It is seldom seen in broad daylight unless disturbed, but as soon as twilight supervenes and moths and dor-beetles begin to be upon the wing, it comes forth from its noonday retreat and is exceedingly busy and active in the pursuit of these and other insects. Montagu says he has observed as many as eight or ten on the wing together in the dusk of the evening, skimming over the surface of the ground in all directions, like Swallows in pursuit of insects. Cattle, as they graze in the evening, disturb numerous moths and flies, and the Nightjar, unalarmed by the animals, to whose presence it becomes accustomed, dashes boldly down to seize a moth which is hovering round their feet, or a fly which has settled upon the udder. Being detected in this act in the twilight by unobservant persons, the story has gone forth that the Goatsucker steals the milk.

From the keepers point of view it is a Night-hawk in the worst sense of the word, a hawk that under cover of the night flits noiselessly but rapidly by and carries off the unsuspecting chick. But here again the observer has been misled by appearances, associating the pointed wings and long tail with the idea of a hawk, entirely overlooking the small slender claws and mandibles, which are quite unequal to the task of holding and cutting up live and resisting feathered prey, and entirely also overlooking the fact that at the time the Nightjar is abroad, the young pheasants and partridges are safely brooded under their respective mothers.

Attentive observation of its habits, and examination of numerous specimens after death, have revealed the real nature of its food, which consists of moths, especially Hepialus humuli,[93] which from its white colour is readily seen by the bird, fernchafers and dor-beetles. Macgillivray says: “The substances which I have found in its stomach were remains of coleopterous insects of many species, some of them very large, as Geotrupes stercorarius, moths of great size also, and occasionally larvÆ. I have seen the inner surface slightly bristled with the hairs of caterpillars, as in the Cuckoo.” He adds, “as no fragments of the hard parts of these insects ever occur in the intestine, it follows that the refuse is ejected by the mouth.” From its habit of capturing dor-beetles, the bird in some parts of the country is known as the Dor-hawk. Wordsworth has referred to it by this name in the lines—

Elsewhere it is called the Eve-jar, and Churn-owl. The latter name is bestowed by Gilbert White in his “Naturalist’s Summer Evening Walk”:—

In his 37th Letter to Pennant, the same author refers to it as “the Caprimulgus, or Fern-owl,” and gives an agreeable account of its movements as observed by himself.

Amongst other things he says:—“But the circumstance that pleased me most was, that I saw it distinctly more than once put out its short leg while on the wing, and by a bend of the head deliver somewhat into its mouth. If it takes any part of its prey with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to suppose, it does these chafers. I no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is curiously furnished with a serrated claw.”

Yarrell has figured the foot, in a vignette to his work on British Birds, in order to show this peculiarity of structure, the use of which has puzzled so many.

The correctness of the view expressed by Gilbert White and confirmed by other authors,[94] has been disputed on the ground that many other birds, as Herons, Gannets, and, I may add, Coursers, have a pectinated claw upon the middle toe, and yet do not take insects upon the wing, or even seize their prey with their feet.

It has been ingeniously suggested that perhaps the serrated claw may be used for brushing away the broken wings and other fragments of struggling insects which doubtless adhere occasionally to the basirostral bristles with which the mouth of this bird is furnished. This is very possible; at the same time it may be observed that Hawks, Parrots, and other birds habitually cleanse the bill and sides of the gape with their feet, and yet have no pectination of the middle claw.

A theory advanced by Mr. Sterland,[95] and endorsed by Mr. Robert Gray,[96] is that since the Nightjar sits lengthwise and not crosswise upon a bough, the serrated claw gives a secure foothold, which in so unusual a position could not be obtained by grasping. But to this theory the objection above made also applies, namely, that many birds, such as Coursers and Thick-knees, have serrated middle claws and yet are never seen to perch.

Some naturalists, and amongst others Bishop Stanley, have surmised that by means of its peculiarly-formed toes, the Nightjar is enabled to carry off its eggs, if disturbed, and place them in a securer spot, but should any such necessity arise, one would think that its large and capacious mouth, as in the case of the Cuckoo, would form the best and safest means of conveyance.

In the young Nightjar at first the peculiarity in question is not observable, and Macgillivray remarked that in a fully-fledged young bird shot early in September, the middle claw had only half the number of serrations which are usually discernible in the adult. He says:—“All birds whose middle claw is serrated have that claw elongated, and furnished with a very thin edge. It therefore appears that the serration is produced by the splitting of the edge of the claw after the bird has used it, but whether in consequence of pressure caused by standing or grasping can only be conjectured.” I have detected some confirmation of this in the case of the common Thick-knee, or Stone Curlew, Œdicnemus crepitans, in some specimens of which I have remarked a very distinct serration of the middle claw, in others only the barest indication of it (the edge of the claw being very thin and elongated); in others again no trace of it.

The objections, however, which have been taken to the suggested use of the pectinated claw in the Nightjar, do not invalidate the statements which have been made by Gilbert White and other observers of the bird’s movements and habits, for the homologous structure which is found to exist in certain species in no way related to each other, may well be designed for very different functions.

I do not find in the works of either Macgillivray or Yarrell any mention made of the peculiar viscous saliva which is secreted by this bird, and which reminds one of what is observable in the case of the Wryneck and the different species of Woodpecker. It no doubt answers the same purpose, namely, to secure more easily the struggling insects upon which its existence depends.