There is something occasionally quite ventriloquial in the sound, caused by the bird turning its head from side to side, both up and down, and scattering, as it were, the notes on every side.
It makes no nest, but scraping a hollow on the bare ground deposits two ellipse-shaped eggs beautifully mottled with two shades of grey and brown, and quite unlike those of any other British bird. The young are hatched in about a fortnight or rather more, and until fully fledged their appearance is singularly ugly. They are covered with a grey down, and their enormous mouths and large prominent eyes give them an expression which is almost repulsive. By pegging the young down with long “jesses,” as one would a Hawk, I have secured them until fully fledged, the old birds feeding them regularly; but on taking them home and turning them into an aviary I could not succeed in keeping them long alive, owing to the difficulty in procuring suitable food, and my inability to give them constant attention.
During the month of September, when shooting amongst low underwood and felled timber, I have not unfrequently disturbed a Nightjar, and on such occasions, when flying away startled, its flight so much resembles that of a Hawk that I have twice seen a keeper shoot one, exclaiming, “There goes a Hawk!” I was not a little surprised one day at finding one of these birds in the middle of a turnip-field. We had marked down some birds at the far end, and the dogs were drawing cautiously on when one of them flushed a Nightjar, which my friend immediately shot—in mistake, as he afterwards said, for a Woodcock.
Notwithstanding what has been said to the contrary, the Nightjar, Night-hawk, Fern Owl, or Goatsucker, as it is variously called in different parts of the country, is one of the most inoffensive birds imaginable. By farmers it is accused of robbing cows and goats of their milk, and by keepers it is remorselessly shot as “vermin;” but by both classes its character is much maligned. Its food is purely insectivorous, and it is as incapable of sucking milk as it is of carrying off and preying upon young game birds. The mistake in the former case must have arisen in this way. The habits of the bird are crepuscular. It is seldom seen in broad daylight unless disturbed, but as soon as twilight supervenes and moths and dor-beetles begin to be upon the wing, it comes forth from its noonday retreat and is exceedingly busy and active in the pursuit of these and other insects. Montagu says he has observed as many as eight or ten on the wing together in the dusk of the evening, skimming over the surface of the ground in all directions, like Swallows in pursuit of insects. Cattle, as they graze in the evening, disturb numerous moths and flies, and the Nightjar, unalarmed by the animals, to whose presence it becomes accustomed, dashes boldly down to seize a moth which is hovering round their feet, or a fly which has settled upon the udder. Being detected in this act in the twilight by unobservant persons, the story has gone forth that the Goatsucker steals the milk.