Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/529

Rh Thus the only time I have seen, or thought I have seen, anything in the parent bird's bill was not just before but just after she fed her young.

9.21.—Same bird back. No appearance of anything in beak.

9.22.—Bird flies to chicks and feeds them, I think more than once, but I cannot say for certain, nor if both chicks are fed or only one.

9.24.—Chicks try to get fed again, on which parent bird flies away with the impatient note. The chicks have now a well-defined piping cry, which they utter when the parent bird is with them; when alone they are silent. The croodling, I now know, is made by the old bird.

9.30.—Three birds fly by close together, one or more of them clapping their wings.

9.31.—Bird (I think the lighter one) back on stump. Nothing in beak, I think. Another bird, churring close by, rises and flies near (but cannot see it) with loud double claps of the wings.

9.35.—Bird on stump. Flies to chicks, and (as I think) either feeds them both or one of them twice.

9.33.—Bird churring on ground somewhere near, and rises choo-oo-oo-ing and clapping wings.

9.40.—Bird leaves chicks, and I come away.

July 7th.—Arrive at 2.40 a.m.—Cycling down, I put up a Nightjar sitting in the road. This bird kept flying in front of me all the way down the road (some two hundred or three hundred yards), and when I turned into the footpath amongst the trees leading to plantations still followed or rather headed, me nearly as far again. It seemed as if my appearance at such an hour piqued the bird's curiosity.

2.40.—Hen bird settles on elder-stump, and then keeps uttering a note like "tchug tchug," a low somewhat parrot-like sound. Soon the other bird flies to her as she sits on the stump, flutters about her without alighting, and flies off. In a minute or two again flies close by her.

2.50.—Bird flies twice quite near, clapping wings, and then twice again in as many minutes.

2.54.—Bird leaves stump.

3 o'clock.—Same bird back on stump. In a minute or two flies to chicks and feeds both well. She darted at them in a