On a midsummer night, in an old wood, the crooning of the nightjar,
with its whirring, vibrant, monotonous notes, now rising, now falling
in key, seems the ideal of lullaby. The beautiful night-flying swallow
suffers for an evil reputation. It is a bird of mystery.
The nightjar is the last of our summer visitors, coming about the
middle of May to stay until September. It is known almost the world
over, but few understand its ways; birds of the night suggest evil
doings and inspire superstition. The plumage has the rich, quiet
beauty of the woodcock and the hen pheasant, and the feathers have the
softness of the owl's. In build the bird comes between a large swift
and a small hawk, and is suggestive of swift or swallow when seen close
at hand, with its miniature, hawk-like bill and a mouth surprisingly
capacious when open. The eggs, like the swift's, are rounded at the
ends.
It is commonly called night-hawk, or dor-hawk, because it preys on
dor-beetles, and it is fern-owl, because it haunts the bracken fern.
It is night-crow, because when on the wing it cries a crowing note,
"crow-ic," and it is jar-owl, because of its owl-like love of night and
its jarring or churring song. Wheel-bird is a name derived from the
wheeling flight. Other names are churn-owl, eve-churr, and night-churr;
but the oldest and one of the most familiar names is goat-sucker,
derived from the legend that the bird sucks milk from goats, thereby
poisoning them and causing blindness. Probably some one saw the bird
near a goat, did not know what it was, or anything about it, and
invented the goat-sucking myth.
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