BILL very short, bent at the end, bristles round the base. KLEIN hath placed this bird in the swallow tribe, and styles it a fwallow with an undivided tail. It has most of the characters of that genus; a very small bill, wide mouth, small legs. It is also a bird of paffage; agrees in food with this genus, and the manner of taking it differs in the time of preying, flying only by night, fo with fome juftice may be called a nocturnal swallow. It feeds on moths, knats, dorrs or chaffers; from which Charlton calls it a Dorr-hawk, its food being entirely that species of beetle* during the month of July, the period of that infect's flight in this country. XXVII. GOATSUCKER. 172. Noc TURNAL. This bird makes but a fhort ftay with us: appears the latter end MIGRATES. of May; and disappears in the northern parts of our island the lat ter end of August, but in the fouthern ftays above a month later. * Scarabæus Melolontha. It NOTES. EGGS. DESCRIP. It inhabits all parts of Great Britain, from Cornwal to the county of Rofs. Mr. Scopoli seems to credit the report of their fucking the teats of goats, an error delivered down from the days of Ariftotle. Its notes are most fingular: the loudeft fo much resembles that of a large fpinning wheel, that the Welsh call this bird aderyn y droell, or the wheel bird. It begins its fong most punctually on the close of day, fitting ufually on a bare bough with the head lower than the tail, as expreffed in the upper figure in the plate; the lower jaw quivering with the efforts. The noise is so very violent, as to give a fenfible vibration to any little building it chances to alight on, and emit this fpecies of note. The other is a fharp fqueak, which it repeats often, this feems a note of love, as it is obferved to reiterate it when in pursuit of the female among the trees. It lays its eggs on the bare ground; ufually two: they are of a long form, of a whitish hue, prettily marbled with reddish brown. The weight of this bird is two ounces and a half: length ten inches and a half: extent twenty-two. Bill very short: the mouth vaft: irides hazel. Plumage a beautiful mixture of black, ferruginous, difpofed in lines, bars and fpots. white, ath-color and The male is diftinguished from the female by a great oval white spot near the end of the three first quil-feathers; and another on the outmost feathers of the tail the plumage is alfo more ferruginous. The legs fhort, fcaly and feathered below the knee: the middle toe connected to those on each fide by a small membrane, as far as the first joint: the claw of the middle toe thin, broad, ferrated. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME, |