stature, who conducted them through extensive marshes to statty built on a great river which contexted crocodiles and flowed towards the rising sun. This information Herodotus derived from the Greeks of Cyrene, who had it from Etearchus, king of the Ammonii, who said that the river in question was a branch of the Egyptian Nile, an opinion in which the historian acquiesced.

Strabo seems to have known little of the interior of Africa and its rivers: he cites the opposite testimonies of Posidonius and Artemidorus, the former of whom said that the rivers of Libya were few and small, while the latter stated that they were large and numerous (p. 830).

Pliny (Hist. Nat., v. 1) gives an account of the expedition into Mauritania of the Roman commander Suetonius Paulinus, who (A.D. 41) led a Roman army across the Atlas, and, after passing a desert of black sand and burnt rocks, arrived at a river called Ger, in some MSS. Niger, near which lived the Canarii, next to whom were the Perorsi, an Ethiopian tribe; and farther inland were the Pharusii, as Pliny states above in the same chapter. The Canarii inhabited the country now called Sus, in the southern part of the empire of Marocco, near Cape Nun, and opposite the Fortunate or Canary Islands; and the Perorsi dwelt to the south of them along the sea-coast. The Ger, or Niger, of Suetonius Paulinus, which he met after crossing the Atlas, must have been one of the streams which flow from the southern side of the great Atlas through the country of Tafilelt, and which lose themselves in the southern desert. One of these streams is still called Ghir, and runs through Sejelmesa. (Gräberg's Marocco.) Ger or Gir seems to be an old generic African appellation for river. As for the desert which Suetonius crossed before he arrived at the Ger, it could evidently not be the great desert, which spread far to the south of the Canarii, but one of the desert tracts which lay immediately south of the Atlas. Caillié describes the inhabited parts of Draha, Tafilelt, and Sejelmesa as consisting of valleys and small plains, enclosed by sterile and rocky tracts of desert country.

But besides the Ger, or Niger, of Suetonius, Pliny in several places (v. 8, 9, and viii. 21) speaks of another apparently distinct river, the Nigris of Ethiopia, which he compares with the Nile, swelling at the same seasons, having similar animals living in its waters, and, like the Nile, producing the calamus and the papyrus.' In his extremely confused account, which he derived from the authority of king Juba II. of Mauritania, he mixes up the Nigris and the Nile together with other rivers, as if all the waters of Central Africa formed but one water-course, which seems to have been a very prevalent notion of old. He says (v. 9) that the Nile had its origin in a mountain of Lower Mauritania, not far from the ocean; that it flowed through sandy deserts, in which it was concealed for several days; that it reappeared in a great lake in Mauritania Cæsariensis, was again hidden for twenty days in deserts, and then rose again in the sources of the Nigris, which river, separating Africa (meaning Northern Africa) from Ethiopia, flowed through the middle of Ethiopia, and became the branch of the Nile called Astapus. The same story, though without any mention of the Nigris, is alluded to by Vitruvius, Strabo, and others, and Mela (iii. 9) adds that the river at its source was called Daras, which is still the name of a river that flows along the eastern side of the southern chain of the Atlas of Marocco and through the province of the same name which lies west of Tafilelt, and is nominally subject to Marocco. The Dara or Draha has a southern course towards the desert, but its termination is unknown. There is another river, the Akassa, called also Wadi Nun, on the west side of the Adrar ridge or southern Atlas, which flows through the country of Sus in a western direction, enters the sea south of Cape Nun, and seems to correspond to the Daras or Daratus of Ptolemy. It has been supposed that the Dara and the Akassa were one river, but the Adrar ridge seems to lie between the two. Throughout all these confused notions of the hydrography of interior Africa entertained by the antients, one constant report or tradition is apparent, namely, that of the existence of a large river south of the great desert, and flowing towards the east. It is true that Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and their respective authorities thought that this river flowed into the Nile, but Mela seems to have doubted this, for he says that when the river reached the middle of the continent, it was not known what became of it. Ptolemy, who wrote later than the preceding geographers,

and seems to have had better information concerning. interior of a frien, hate stating that Libya Inter.c bounded on the north by the two Mauritaniæ, and by A and Cyrenaica; on the east by Marmarica and br Ethiopia which lies south of Egypt; on the south v terior Ethiopia, in which is the country of Agisym. on the west by the Western Ocean from the Hese gulf to the frontier of Mauritania Tingitana,' procesi enumerate various positions on the coast of the ocean, which he mentions the chief mountains of Libya an. streams which flow from them to the sea. He then s In the interior the two greatest rivers are the Geir and Nigeir; the Geir unites Mount Usargula (which he place 20° 20′ N. lat. and 33° E. long.) with the Garam. pharanx (the name of a mountain which he has stated. to be in 10° N. lat. and 50° E. long.). A river dag from it at 42° E. long. and 16° N. lat., and makes the Chelonides, of which the middle is in 49° E. long, a N. lat. This river is said to be lost under ground an reappear, forming another river, of which the wester is at 46° E. long. and 16° N. lat. The eastern part of river forms the lake Nuba, the site of which is 50′′ E ... and 15° N. lat.' The positions here assigned to the Gr and the direction of its main stream, from the Ga mantic mountain to Mount Usargula, being southeast north-west, seem to point out for its representative e... the Shary of Bornou and its supposed affluent the Kulla of Browne, or perhaps the Bahr Misselad of the traveller, called Om Teymam by Burckhardt, who says i indigenous appellation is Gir, a large stream from about 10° N. lat., and flowing north-west th Wadai, west of the borders of Dar-Fur. The Miss supposed to flow into lake Fittre; we do not know why any communication exists between lake Fittre an. Tschad. In fact it appears that several streams, be as Bahr Kulla and the Bahr Misselad, all coming free great southern range, or Mountains of the Moon, fl north-west direction through the countries lying b Bornou and Dar-Fur, and the Geir of Ptolemy ma been the representative of any or all of them. Lina informed by some Takrousi pilgrims from Dar Se they travelled two months on the Bahr al Abad bef they arrived at Sennaar; and that before arming tr Abiad they followed the course of another ne upaar and that the Abiad had its rise in a country called Bat Lesse, from which some of the waters flow towards Mar that is to say, to the north-west.

We now come to Ptolemy's Nigeir, a name which, ba been mistaken for the Latin word Niger, has added confusion on the subject. Nigeir is a compound f general appellative of Geir or Gir, which is found to several rivers in various parts of Africa, and the pr or N', which is found in several names of the same regi ported by Denham and Caillié. Ptolemy makes the A quite a distinct river from the Geir, and places t westward. He says that it joins the mountain Ma 19° N. lat. and 14° E. long, with the mountain Tra N. lat. and 38° E. long. Its course is thereby d much longer and in a less oblique line to the equ the Geir. In fact it would correspond tolerably eallowing for the imperfection of the means of observa antient times-with the actual direction of the course Joliba and that of the river of Sakkatoo, supposing river to form a communication with lake TsciPtolemy says that the Nigeir has a divergent to the Libye, which he places in 16° 30' N. lat. and 35° E and the words of the text seem to express that the ran into the lake, so that the course of the Nige cording to Ptolemy, as well as his predecessors, easterly, as the Joliba or Quorra actually runs for a part of its course. "The lake Libye,' observes a c guished geographer, 'to which there was an easte vergent, I strongly suspect to have been the lake I notwithstanding that the position of Libye falls 20 graphical miles north-westward of this lake, for the nar Libye favours the presumption that it was the prve lake in the interior of Libya; it was very natura. Ptolemy, like many of the moderns, should have been z informed as to the communication of the river wah lake, and that he should have mistaken two rivers 8 from the same ridge in opposite directions, one to the Q and the other to the Tschad (I allude to the Sakkat the Yeu rivers), for a single communication from the Qu

to the lake.' (Leake's paper On the Quorra and Niger,' in the second volume of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 1832, with map at the end of he volume illustrating the subject.

But Ptolemy, after all, may not have been so much misnformed with respect to a communication existing between he lake and his Nigeir, if, as is now strongly suspected, he communication really exists, though in an inverse diection from that which Ptolemy appears to have undertood. It is surmised that the river Tschadda, which, at its unction with the Quorra, just above the beginning of the elta, is larger than the Quorra itself, receives an outlet rom the lake somewhere about the town of Jacobah. Captain W. Allen, R.N., On a New Construction of a Hap of a Portion of Western Africa, showing the possibility f the Rivers Yeu and Chadda being the Outlet of the Lake Chad, in vol. viii. of the Journal of the Geographical Soiety of London, 1838; and also the Map of West Africa, No. 11, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 【nowledge.) If this surmise prove true, it would explain he statement of the Arabian geographers of the middle ges, Edrisi, Abulfeda, and Leo Africanus, who state that he Nil el Abid, or river of the negroes, flowed from east to west. The Tschadda then would be the river of the Arabian, nd the Joliba, or Upper Quorra, that of the Greek and toman geographers. Both were ignorant of the real terination of their respective streams. It is nevertheless emarkable that the distance laid by Ptolemy between his ource of the river and the western coast is the same as that iven by modern observations; that Thamondocana, one of be towns on the Nigeir, is exactly coincident with Timuktú, as recently laid down by M. Jomard from the itinerary f M. Caillié; that the length of the course resulting from 'tolemy's positions is nearly equal to that of the Quorra as ar as the mountains of Kong, with the addition of the schada or Shary of Funda, and that his position of fount Thala, at the south-east extremity of the Nigeir, is ery near that in which we may suppose the Tschadda › have its origin; so that it would seem as if Ptolemy, like Sultan Bello and other modern Africans, had considered he Tschadda as a continuation of the main river, though e knew the Egyptian Nile too well to fall into the modern rror of supposing the Nigeir to be a branch of the Nile. he mountains of Kong, and the passage of the river hrough them at right angles to their direction, formed a atural termination to the extent of the geographer's knowedge, in like manner as among ourselves the presumed, nd at length the ascertained existence of those mountains, as been the chief obstacle to a belief that the river termiated in the Atlantic.' (Leake's Paper already quoted.) The opinions established by the Arabian geographers of he middle ages of the Niger flowing westward, led Euopeans to look for its æstuary in the Senegal, Gambia, and Rio Grande; but upon examination of those rivers the mistake was ascertained; and D'Anville and other geoaphers separated the course of the Senegal from that of he Niger, and of the latter from that of the Nile. Mungo Park was the first European who saw the great internal ver of Soudan flowing towards the east, and called Joliba. He traced it in two different journeys, from Bammakoo, about en days from its source, to Boussa, where he was unfortu ately killed in 1806. Clapperton crossed the river at Boussa, on his second journey to Sakkatoo in 1826; and fter his death his faithful servant Richard Lander underok to navigate the river from Boussa to its mouth. In 327 he proceeded from Badagry, on the coast, to Boussa, nd there embarked on the river; found that it flowed in a outhern direction, receiving several large rivers from the ast; among others the noble Tschadda, after which the nited stream passed through an opening in the Kong hain, and that after issuing from the mountains it sent off everal branches both east and west towards the coast, while he himself reached the sea by the branch known till hen by the name of Rio Nun.

A fuller description of the river and its banks is given inder QUORRA, the object of the present article being only o elucidate the historical question whether the great river of the Libya of Herodotus, the Nigris of Pliny, the Nigeir of Ptolemy, and the Niger of modern geographers, be one and the same river with the Quorra. M. Walckenaer (Recherches Géographiques sur l'Intérieur de l'Afrique Septentrionale) has maintained the negative side of the question, asserting that the antients had no

knowledge of Soudan, and that the Nigeir of Ptolemy was one of the rivers flowing from the Atlas. But Col. Leake has ably answered him and supported the affirmative in the paper above quoted.

NIGER, CAIUS PESCE'NNIUS, appears to have been of humble origin; but his great military talents recommended him successively to the notice of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, and Pertinax, by whom he was employed in offices of trust and honour. He was consul together with Septimius Severus, and obtained the government of Syria. On the murder of Pertinax, A.D. 193, the empire was exposed for sale by the Prætorian guards, and was purchased by Didius Julianus, whom the senate was compelled to acknowledge as emperor. The people however did not tamely submit to this indignity; and three generals, at the head of their respective legions, Septimius Severus, who commanded in Pannonia, Clodius Albinus, in Britain, and Pescennius Niger, in Syria, refused to acknowledge the nomination of the Prætorians, and each claimed the empire. Of these, Niger was the most popular, and his cause was warmly espoused by all the provinces of the East. But he did not possess the energy and activity of his rival Severus. Instead of hastening to Italy, where his presence was indispensable, he quietly remained at Antioch, while Severus marched to Rome, dethroned Didius, and made active preparations for prosecuting the war against him in Asia. Roused at length from his inactivity, Niger crossed over to Europe and established his head-quarters at Byzantium; but he had scarcely arrived at this place, before his troops in Asia were defeated near Cyzicus by the generals of Severus. He was soon however able to collect another army, which he commanded in person; but being defeated successively near Nicea and at Issus, he abandoned his troops, and fled towards the Euphrates with the intention of seeking refuge among the Parthians. But before he could reach the Euphrates, he was overtaken by a detachment of the enemy, and put to death on the spot.

(Herodian, b. ii.; Spartianus, Life of Pescennius Niger; Aurelius Victor, De Cæsaribus, c. 20; Eutropius, viii. 10; Dion, Epitome, b. 73, 74.)

NIGHT-JARS, the English name of those NightSwallows vernacularly termed Goat-suckers; whence the name Caprimulgida, by which the family is generally known among ornithologists. Mr. Rennie changes the name of the European Night-Jar to Nyctichelidon (NightSwallow), objecting that the name Goat-sucker, which it has received in all languages, and which, he thinks, has been most absurdly continued by systematic naturalists in the term Caprimulgus, shows the opinion of it entertained by the vulgar. Now we cannot admit this great absurdity though we entirely agree with Mr. Rennie that it is as impossible for the Night-Jar to suck the teats of cattle (though most birds are fond of milk), as it is for cats to suck the breath from sleeping infants, of which they are popularly accused.' If every zoological name that has not a sure foundation were to be changed, there would be no small alteration in nomenclature and not a little confusion; as it is, the perpetual change of names is quite sufficiently perplexing. Nor are we at all sure that such names as Caprimulgus are not of some value as showing, in connexion with a true history of the habits of the bird, how the errors and superstitions of old times have vanished before the light of modern investigation. Thus much as an apology for not changing the family name Caprimulgida.

Mr. Vigors remarks that when we search among the Perchers for that point where they approximate the Owls, we at once light upon a group, the Caprimulgus of Linnæus, whose general appearance and habits point out the affinity. The nocturnal and predatory manners of this genus,' says Mr. Vigors, the hawking flight, the legs feathered to the talons, the large ears and eyes, the very disk that surrounds the face, and the pectination of the external quill-feathers, observable in some of the species, the general softness of the plumage, together with its peculiarly striking colour and

6

markings, produce a similarity between it and the Strix that has attracted the eye of the common observer no less than the naturalist. The provincial names of this genus have generally a reference to this resemblance; while the earlier scientific describers of the different species have for the most part ranked them with the owls. I know not whether the singular character observable in some of the species of this family, the serrated nail of the middle toe, may not be cited as an additional proof of their approach to the Birds of Prey. The strong toes of the latter are lost in Caprimulgus: but a construction of similar import (for the serration of the nail appears capable of being applied to the purposes of seizure only), preserves, though faintly, the resemblance. May we not almost venture to affirm that this apparently trivial appendage is an instance of that beautiful shading by which nature softens down the extremes of her neighbouring groups-one of those minute and delicate touches by which she marks at once an affinity and a deviation? But while we may discern at a glance the general approximation of these two families, we must at the same time acknowledge that they stand in need of an intermediate link to give them a closer connection. The weakness of the bill and of the legs and feet of the Caprimulgus still keeps it at some distance from the Owls, in which the same members are comparatively strong; while the wide gape of its mouth serves to divide the families still further. A connecting link has been however supplied by an Australian group, the Podargus of M. Cuvier, which harmonises these discrepant characters. We have an opportunity of observing among the specimens in the collection of the Linnean Society, how far the bill of this extraordinary genus combines the different forms of that of the two genera, and how far the legs, still maintaining the characteristics of Caprimulgus, such as the unequal length of the toes, are related to those of Strix by their superior robustness. Here indeed there is a beautiful gradation of affinities. All the front toes of Caprimulgus are united by a connecting membrane as far as to the first joint; those of Strix are divided to the origin; while those of Podargus partake of the characters of both, in having the middle toe connected with the outer, but divided from the inner. Again, as I have already remarked, Caprimulgus has the nail of the middle toe dilated and serrated: Strix has it, generally speaking, undilated and entire at the margin; but in Podargus the same part displays the singular dilatation of the one and the marginal integrity of the other. It is difficult to say to which of these groups it comes nearest, until further and more accurate accounts than we at present possess of its food and economy may determine its actual situation. At present it remains osculant between the two families, and may decidedly be pronounced the immediate passage from the Birds of Prey to the Perchers.' Mr. Vigors adds in a note that he had latterly obtained accounts from actual observers of some of these Podargi in New Holland, stating their manners to be generally conformable to those of the Caprimulgi.

Mr. Vigors further observes that the union between the two families of Caprimulgida and Hirundinida in the most essential particulars, in the habits, economy, and general conformation, is too evident to the common observer, and too universally acknowledged by scientific writers, to need any further illustration. But he remarks that it is gratifying to observe, how, even in minute particulars, a gradual succession of affinities imperceptibly smooths the passage between conterminous groups; nor does he pass over without remark the circumstance of the hind toe of Caprimulgus being usually retractile, which enables it to place all its toes in front, in a similar position to that which they maintain in Cypselus, where the family of the Hirundinide terminates. He notices also the conformation of the tail in the two families as showing a similar affinity, observing that some species of Caprimulgus, then lately arrived from Brazil, exhibit the forked tail of Hirundo, one of which, indeed, the C. psalurus of Temininck, has this character developed to an almost disproportionate degree. Leaving those typical families,' continues Mr. Vigors, with the short bill, and taking a general survey of the tribe, we may perceive that the Cuprimulgida unite themselves to the longerbilled families, by means of the Linnean Todi, which preserve the broad base of the bill of the latter, but lead on, by comparative length of that member, to the succeeding family of Halcyonidae. If we compare the bill of the type of the last-mentioned genus, the Todus viridis, Linn.

[MUSCICAPIDE, ante, p. 14], with those of Caprimulgus Halcyon [KINGFISHERS, vol. xiii., p. 228], we shall pere that it stands exactly midway between them in the relat proportions of strength and breadth which it bears to a In the length also of the tail, an important character in the groups that feed on the wing, it maintains a middle stat: between them.' For the group which forms the immed connection between the present family of Todide and preceding Caprimulgida, Mr. Vigors observes that we indebted to Dr. Horsfield, since in the depressed broad-based bill and wide gape of Eurylaimus we recog the characters which unite those families [MUSCICAP ante, pp. 15, 16], and Mr. Vigors refers to the valua plates of the Zoological Researches in Java, as exhit. the intimate approach of the bill of this latter genus to.. of Podargus Javanensis. Near to Eurylaimus, which the opinion of Mr. Vigors is united to Todus by some spe now referred to the former genus, but which were or ally included in the latter, he would place the genus Ey stomus of Vieillot [MEROPIDE, vol. xv., p. 118], whe the essential characters of the bill, and from all Mr. V: could ascertain of its general habits and economy, seems him to bear a striking affinity to the present group. Her also the same considerations would incline him to arrange ti Calyptomena of Sir Stamford Raffles, which differs chir from the groups now mentioned in its comparatively short bill and the singular covering of plumes that project ove: upper mandible. All these and some other correspo genera will be found, Mr. Vigors makes no doubt, on z accurate knowledge of their economy, to belong either to present family, which is placed at the extremity of the F sirostres, or to that of Pipride, which forms, in the sy of Mr. Vigors, one of the aberrant groups also of the ne bouring circle of Dentirostres, and thus comes in exi with the Todide. Mr. Vigors admits that more extens knowledge respecting these birds will determine the le demarcation between them; but the general affinity which they approach each other, at least, in conta families, may at once, in his opinion, be decided wi hesitation. (On the Natural Affinities that connert :. orders and families of Birds,' Linn. Trans., vol. xv.)

Mr. Swainson (Classification of Birds) considers t. order of Fissirostres to be best represented by the Swamy and Goat-suckers; observing at the same time, that the. former are the most isolated; whilst the latter, above a other birds, show the nearest affinity to the owls 3 species, indeed,' says Mr. Swainson, has been yet covered which would perplex a naturalist to decide to w of these families it belonged, but that is not material, do not uphold the injudicious theory that every : nature's links is so perfect, or rather so well knows, 1leave no unequal intervals in the series; on the contrary maintain that such interruptions are frequently tours in this manner are the Goat-suckers detached by interval from the Owls. The same author remarks: the fissirostral birds, as a whole, are peculiarly distingas by having the powers of flight developed in the E degree; all the energies of their nature, he observes, *concentrated in this one perfection; for their feet a very short, weak, and generally so imperfect as to be the only to rest the body after flight; their food being exclus insects captured upon the wing. To accomplish proceeds Mr. Swainson, nature has given to their an enormous width, by which, superadded to their ama flight, and rapidity of movement, they are almost s capture their prey. Who that has watched the swa the goat-sucker, has failed to recognise these pecular a fections? As the nocturnal goat-suckers frequently upon beetles and large moths, the mouth, in such spe defended by stiff bristles; but these appendages are dered unnecessary to the swallows; their game coc entirely of those little soft insects seen in the air on a mer's evening or sporting on the flowers of a suns The goat-suckers choose the twilight, and catch thes precisely in the same way, excepting, indeed, that little short feet are sometimes used for the same purp most singular part of their economy, first noticed t countryman White. Some of these nocturnal birds (Ft) dus,* Čuv.) have a bill nearly as strong as an owl's; & are furnished with forked tails of excessive length; a species, discovered during our researches in Brazil mulgus diurnus, Temm.) quits the nocturnal habits of

Podargus must be meant.

ongeners, and in cloudy days may be seen, in troops of fteen or twenty, skimming over the surface of ponds, preisely in the manner of swallows.' Mr. Swainson then emarks that the Swallows and the Goat-suckers are, in act, connected by certain Swifts, for the Balassian Swift =described as a nocturnal bird, appearing at sunset and oing to rest at sunrise; and thus he enters the family Tirundinidee. [SWALLOWS.]

The Caprimulgida, according to Mr. Swainson's classication, consist of the following genera and subgenera. ut it should be remembered that he states that he has ought it best not to attempt a natural arrangement, until me family is better understood. Bill exFeet very short, weak;

Character of the Family.---Plumage lax, soft.
edingly small; gape enormous.
e hallux directed forwards. (Sw.)

Genus Podargus, Cuv.

Size large. The middle claw not serrated. The hallux t directed forward.

Subgenera, Podargus proper. Bill large, very strong; e tip and margins of the upper mandible folding over those the lower. Culmen elevated and arched. True rictal stles none. Tongue very thin, entire. Tarsus short. wainson.)

Several species of this subgenus have been found in ew Holland; and we select as an example of these Pogus humeralis.

Description.-Variegated above with ashy brown and ty yellow; head and sides of the back conspicuously iped with black; forehead and dorsal plumage lightly tted and banded with white. Tessellated beneath with ack stripes and approximating dirty yellow bands. Length the body 20 inches, and of the tail 8.

Mr. Vigors and Dr. Horsfield observe that the birds of s genus in the collection of the Linnean Society bear h a general resemblance to each other, that they felt ne besitation in describing them as different species. e careful examination of many individuals in their own Entry will, in the opinion of these zoologists, alone deterhe with certainty whether they are distinct or merely ieties of the same species from age or sex. They state rever that Dr. Latham, as well as themselves, distinshed this as a species, under the name of the Cold River at-sucker, from the Wedge-tailed Goat-sucker (Podargus nleyanus). Mr. Swainson also cites it as a species.

Podargus Javanensis of Horsfield, the Chabba-wonno of the Javanese. Description.-General colour ferruginous or rufous, with a tint of isabella varied by undulated transverse bands of dark brown. A collar of pale whitish isabella, variegated with two very narrow bands of deep brown, passes round the lower part of the neck, and from this collar several large, irregular, white marks are disposed in an interrupted series from the axilla to the middle of the back; on the breast and belly several white feathers are scattered. The tranverse bands are strongest on the rounded tail. Feet rufous; claws blackish; bill obscure yellow and rather shining; middle toe not dentated. Length 9 inches. Habits.-Not known. It is nocturnal and conceals itself in large forests.

Podargus humeralis.

Here we must notice an Asiatic example of this form, P. C., No. 100.

Head and Foot of Goat-sucker (Caprimulgns Europeus).

VOL. XVI.-2 G

:

Mr. Swainson subdivides the genus into the following Subgenera, Caprimulgus. Gape strongly bristled. Tail lengthened, rounded. Lateral toes equal. (Sw.)

We select as an example Caprimulgus Europæus. Description: Male.-Plumage above and that of the throat ash-grey, thickly streaked and spotted with brown mostly of a yellowish tinge; head and neck with longitudinal blackish streaks; a white stripe beneath the base of the lower mandible extends along each side of the lower part of the head, and there is a central patch of white upon the throat; quills with the outer webs blotched with reddishbrown, and the three exterior feathers with a large white patch near the tips of the inner webs; tail irregularly marked and indistinctly barred with blackish-grey and yellowish-brown; the two external feathers on each side white at their termination. Plumage of the under parts yellowish-brown, with transverse blackish bars. Bill and irides dark brown; tarsi paler.

Female with the plumage of the male generally; but she wants the white spots on the quills and tail-feathers.

This is most probably the alyoonas (Egothelas, or Goatsucker) of Aristotle and the Greeks, and the Caprimulgus of Pliny and the antient Italians. There is indeed, as we shall presently see, another European species, but it is very rare. The Caprimulgus Europaeus is the Calcabotto Piattaglione, Porta quaglie, Boccaccio, and Cova-terra of the modern Italians; Chotacabras of the Spaniards; Tettechevre, Engoulevent ordinaire, and Crapaud volant of the French; Milchsauger, Geissmilcher, Nacht Rabe, Nacht Schwalbe, and Tag-Schläfer of the Germans; Natskraffa, Nutskarra, and Quallknarren of the Fauna Suecica: NatRavn, Nut-Skade, and Aften-bakke of Brunnich; Muckenstecker and Nachtrabb of Kramer; Aderyn y droell, Rhodwr, of the antient British; and Goat-sucker, NightJar, Jur-Owl, Churn-Owl, Fern-Owl, Dor-Hawk, NightHawk, and Wheel-Bird of the modern British.

Caprimulgus Europæus

The absurd story of the goat-sucking habits of this bird may be traced back as far as the time of Aristotle, and is probably of much older date. It has all the appearance of a deep-rooted popular prejudice, which was so extensively believed when that zoologist wrote, as to demand, in his opinion, insertion in his History of Animals. In the ninth book of that history (c. xxx.), Aristotle says, The bird called Egothelas is a mountain-bird, a little larger than the blackbird (Korrúpov) and a little less than the cuckoo. It lays eggs to the number of two or three at most, and is of a slothful nature (Bakikóç). Flying upon the goats, it sucks them (Onλázet de raç alyαç πроσπεтóμεvoç), whence it has its name. They say that when it has sucked the teat it becomes dry, and that the goat becomes blind. It is not sharp-sighted by dav; but it sees by night. Elian's

version of the effect of the bird's sucking is confined to part sucked. He says that the operation makes the teat dra blind (ruplot paslóv), and so the flow of the milk is str He speaks of the great audacity of the bird, observing t it is fearless of the vengeance of the goatherds f Elian also refers to its goat-sucking propensity in c book xvi. Pliny (Nat. Hist., ix. 40) states that the primulgi are nocturnal thieves; for they cannot see by (interdiu enim visu carent). They enter the folds bula), and fly to the udders of the goats in order to t the milk, from which injury the udder dies away, blindness falls upon the goats which have been so suc Nor is the charge of goat-sucking the only false accum made against the Night-Jar. White (Selborne) mi us that the country-people have a notion that the fer or churn-owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeni is very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting strikes at them, the fatal distemper known to cow-le by the name of puckeridge. Thus,' says White, ' this harmless ill-fated bird fall under a double impot which it by no means deserves; in Italy, of sucking a teats of goats, whence it is called the Caprimulga with us, of communicating a deadly disorder to the cat But the truth of the matter is, the malady is occasioned ( the oestrus bovis, a dipterous insect, which lays its along the chines of kine, where the maggots, when hat eat their way through the hide of the beast into the and grow to a very large size.' (White's Selborne.) Bat his folio edition (1555), gives no figure of this specs appears to confound it with an Owl, L'Effraye or Fr In the small 4to. Portraits d'Oyseaux,' &c. (1557), 1) is given at the end of the Owls, which, though bad, be mistaken for anything but the Goat-sucker, via t titles of Aiyoonas, Strix Caprimulgus, Fur wra Effraye, Frezaye,' with the following old quatrain:

·

Le hideux cry de la Frezaye effraye
Celuy qui l'oit: elle vole de nuiet.
Et à tetter les chevres prend deduict.
T'esbahis-tu s'elle se nom Effraye?'

Food, Habits, Reproduction, &c. - The food of European Goat-sucker consists chiefly of night-ang evening-flying moths and beetles, Phalana, Math &c. In the stomach of one which Willughby opened we seeds as well as beetles. The Fern-chafer, Melolontha stitialis, seems to be a favourite food, and hence the bedt frequently found in those neighbourhoods where abounds. It spends the summer in the temperate co of Europe, but on the approach of winter retires to the s of the Mediterranean sea. Its arrival in these islands looked for from the middle of May to the end of that and its departure takes place towards the end of Se or beginning of October. The earliest appearance a bird in White's Calendar is dated on the 1st of M the latest on the 26th of that month. The last naturalist paid particular attention to the habits species. There is no bird, I believe,' writes that dep observer, in a letter to Pennant, whose manner Is studied more than that of the Caprimulgus sucker), as it is a wonderful and curious creatum have always found that though sometimes it may it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters is) note sitting on a bough; and I have for many an bala watched it as it sat with its under mandible quivere particularly this summer. It perches usually on twig, with its head lower than its tail, in an attitu expressed by your draughtsman in the folio Britu logy. This bird is most punctual in beginning exactly at the close of day; so exactly that I have strike up more than once or twice just at the report Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear wh weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers d parts of its windpipe, formed for sound, just as ca You will credit me, I hope, when I assure you that, neighbours were assembled in an hermitage on the s steep hill, where we drink tea, one of these chur came and settled on the cross of that little straw edif began to chatter, and continued his note for many m and we were all struck with wonder to find that the of that little animal when put in motion gave a vibration to the whole building! This bird also sod makes a small squeak, repeated four or five times, have observed that to happen when the cock has bear