Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/48

Rh wings and tails are very long, by means of which they excel in sudden evolutions; and they can mount instantaneously from a level flight, like a sky-rocket. . . When flushed in sunshine, they drop again at once, so as to be in danger of being caught by spaniels, and look round them with astonishment; hence a notion prevails that they are foolish birds."

Like many other birds, the female Nightjar, if suddenly surprised by an intruder, when she has young, will feign helpless lameness, tumbling along in an odd manner, to lure away the stranger from the centre of her anxious cares, by the hope of capturing her.

In the smallness of the beak, and the great width of the gape, the Swallows resemble the Nightjars, as they do also in the weakness and minuteness of their feet. They are birds, however, of far more powerful wing, and though they too pursue insects, which are captured and devoured during flight, yet as their season of activity is wholly confined to daylight, their plumage has neither the lax softness, nor the mottled style of coloration common to nocturnal birds. On the contrary, the plumage of the Swallows is always close and smooth, and very often burnished with a metallic gloss; while its prevailing colours are black (more or less changing into blue or green)