Goatsucker

“ A myriad night life pulsed round the waking man. The Goatsucker flew round the borders of the wood catching the insects in his flight, and his strange, jarring pipe thrilled all the heavy air; among the leaves and undergrowth the Hedgepig, rested with his long day's sleep, rustled in search of food, making his curious, low, gurgling sound, and rattling his spines.
In those far-off days wild life luxuriated and throve. Day and night were full of strange sounds heard but rarely now. As Hyla stood wearily by his hut, the Polecat was fishing for eels in the mud of the lake shore. ”

“ In the daytime it sleeps on the ground on some dry knoll or open part of the forest, and as twilight approaches sallies forth to the open glades and small plains or cleared lands in search of insects; its flight, which is much more powerful than that of any other Goatsucker I have seen, enabling it to pass through the air with great rapidity, and to mount up and dart down almost at right angles whenever an insect comes within the range of its eye, which is so large and full that its powers of vision must be very great. ”

“ Ignorance alone has given the goatsucker its name. When the moon shines bright, it may be seen close by the cows, goats, and sheep, jumping up every now and then under their bellies. “Approach a little nearer,” says Waterton; “he is not shy, he fears no danger, for he knows no sin. See how the nocturnal flies are tormenting the herd, and with what dexterity he springs up and catches them as fast as they alight on the bellies, legs, or udders of the animals! ”

“ While in quest of these, the blue heron, the large and small brown heron, the boat-bill, and Muscovy duck now and then rise up before you.
When the sun has sunk in the western woods, no longer agitated by the breeze; when you can only see a straggler or two of the feathered tribe hastening to join its mate, already at its roosting-place, then it is that the goatsucker comes out of the forest, where it has sat all day long in slumbering ease, unmindful of the gay and busy scenes around it. ”

“ A fourth species flies in flocks—especially when the Indian maize is ripe—and is looked on with a jealous eye by the farmers, whom it robs, and whom it does not repay by the melody of its song.
Goatsuckers.
Numerous species of the goatsucker, well known as the bird of night, inhabit the forests of the Amazon as well as the settled districts. Their pretty mottled plumage is destitute of the lustre which is observed in the feathers of the birds of day. One is nearly the size of the common wood owl. Its cry once heard will never be forgotten. It seems like one in deep distress. ”

“ The harmless, unoffending goatsucker, from the time of Aristotle down to the present day, has been in disgrace with man. Father has handed down to son, and author to author, that this nocturnal thief subsists by milking the flocks. Poor injured little bird of night, how sadly hast thou suffered, and how foul a stain has inattention to facts put upon thy character! ”

“ The spirit of winter brooded over the river valley. The faint summer music of the gold-crest in the fir-tops, the sweet, flute-like solo of the meditative thrush in the darkness of the hawthorn, and the weird, continuous rattle of the goatsucker perched moveless on an oak-bough near the river-bend, were no longer heard when at dusk Brighteye left his burrow and sat, watching and listening, on the little eminence above the river's brink. ”

“ It is the enormous mouth, fringed with its strange line of coarse bristles along the beak, that has gained for our night-jar its common European name of goatsucker. And indeed, if you watch close on southern upland farms, among the Apennines or the Atlas, you will see the night-jars at twilight hovering close by the udders of the goats and cattle as they lie stretched in the meadows. But they are not milking them, as the Italian peasant firmly believes; it is as friends and allies that they come, not as enemies. ”

“ This great goatsucker is a little larger than our barn owl, with a mottled plumage after the order of the whip-poor-will, only with more brown in it, and is in habit quite as nocturnal as either one of them. In immense numbers it resorts to caverns, coming out in noisy array only at dark to seek the nuts and fruits which constitute its food. Steatornis breeds by the hundreds in the vast gloomy caves to which it resorts, laying three or four white eggs in a shallow clay nest. The young are overlaid with quantities of fat, and are collected by the natives for the oil they afford therefrom. ”

“ In some places they call it the ‘goatsucker,’ from a foolish idea that it sucked the milk from the goats, as it is sometimes seen to fly close down to them, and, between the legs of various animals, to capture the flies that infest them in the soft, tender parts of their bodies. A glance at the bird’s great gaping mouth should be sufficient to convince anybody that it was meant for nothing else but catching flies, and the spiny fringe of hair at the side for caging them there when caught. ”

“ Goatsuckers are long winged birds, with small bills, but with an extraordinarily large mouth, the opening of which extends beneath and beyond the eyes. They are chiefly dusk or night fliers, their food consisting of insects which they catch on the wing. Their plumage is mottled black, brownish and white, resembling the ground upon which they lay their eggs. ”

“ A bird must be common and plentiful before people generally observe it, so that there are many of the labouring class who have never seen the goatsucker, or would say so, if you asked them. Few observe the migration of the turtle-doves, perhaps confusing them with the wood-pigeons, which stay in the fields all the winter. By the time the sap is well up in the oaks, all the birds have arrived, and the tremulous cooing of the turtle-dove is heard by those engaged in barking the felled trees. ”

“ Certain it is that in some groups of goatsuckers, as in some groups of owls, individuals of the same species are found in plumage of two entirely different hues—rufous and grey. The only explanation as yet offered of this fact is that the difference is sexual, but evidence to that effect is conflicting. It must not, however, be supposed that this common feature, any more than that of the existence of tufted forms in each group, indicates any close relationship between them. ”

“ In the same order come the Goatsuckers, or Nightjars, wide-mouthed, swift-flying, insectivorous birds, which have an almost cosmopolitan range, being absent only from New Zealand and the Polynesian Islands. These Owl-like birds have very long wings, thus indicating their rapid flight. They are very valuable insect destroyers, though they are sometimes called "Night Hawks," and are shot by people who foolishly shoot hawks. ”

“ Some other errors in the natural history of animals have been long and widely prevalent, but have no superstitions connected with them. It will be enough merely to mention them. It is a common but a purely erroneous belief that the goatsucker and the hedgehog suck the teats of cows lying in the field—the latter being persecuted on that account. The woodpecker is ruthlessly killed because of the injury which it is supposed to do to trees by pecking holes in the wood and causing them to rot. ”

“ Representatives of the suborder of birds, United States species of which we are here considering, are found in many parts of the world, though they appear to be entirely absent from the avifaunæ of Polynesia and New Zealand. In South America, in Asia, in Africa, and in Australia we meet with goatsuckers of the most varied kinds, both in the matter of form and plumage. ”

“ They somewhat resemble the Swallows in their mode of life, and like them may be seen skimming over pools of water, apparently more for the sake of amusement than from any real necessity for such active exertion. When they discover anything in the shape of food, they hover over it for an instant and pounce upon their prey, not coming down upon it precipitately and perpendicularly as some of the Divers do, but sweeping obliquely towards it, so as to seize it with the beak without immersing their bodies. According to Montagu, "The flight of this species is not unlike that of the Goatsucker ”

“ Specimens of this Goatsucker are very rare in collections, and I am only aware of the existence of examples in American museums and of the pair obtained by Osburn in Jamaica about half a century ago, and now in the British Museum. Recent collectors have failed to procure it, and it is therefore to be feared that, like Aestrelata caribbaea, it has been exterminated by the introduced mongoose and other animals.
Habitat: Jamaica.
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NESTOR PRODUCTUS (GOULD.) (Plate 6, head.)
Wilson's Parrakeet Latham, Gen. Hist. B. II, p. 170 (1822) .
Plyctolophus productus Gould, P.Z.S. 1836, p. 19. ”

“ Many animals live upon insects; and this must have been the most difficult part of the provision to procure. There are nineteen species of goatsuckers; [12] and there must have been in the ark two hundred and sixty-six individuals. These birds feed upon flies, moths, beetles, and other insects. What an innumerable multitude must have been provided for the goatsuckers alone! But there are a hundred and thirty-seven species of fly-catchers; and Noah must have had a fly-catcher family of nineteen hundred and eighteen individuals to supply with appropriate food. ”

“ It must strike every one, that the numbers of birds and insects of different groups, having scarcely any resemblance to each other, which yet feed on the same food and inhabit the same localities, cannot have been so differently constructed and adorned for that purpose alone. Thus the goatsuckers, the swallows, the tyrant flycatchers, and the jacamars, all use the same kind of food, and procure it in the same manner: they all capture insects on the wing, yet how entirely different is the structure and the whole appearance of these birds! ”

“ Podargus includes the bird (P. cuvieri) known from its cry as morepork to the Tasmanians, [2] and several other species, the number of which is doubtful, from Australia and New Guinea. They have comparatively powerful bills, and it would seem feed to some extent on fruits and berries, though they mainly subsist on insects, chiefly Cicadae and Phasmidae. They also differ from the true goatsuckers in having the outer toes partially reversible, and they build a flat nest on the horizontal branch of a tree for the reception of their eggs, which are of a spotless white. ”

“ We have next to consider the birds forming the genus Podargus and those allied to it, whether they be regarded as a distinct family, or as a subfamily of Caprimulgidae. As above stated, they have feet constructed as those of birds normally are, and their sternum seems to present the constant though comparatively trivial difference of having its posterior margin elongated into two pairs of processes, while only one pair is found in the true goatsuckers. ”

“ Goatsuckers, geese, carrion vultures, and many other birds of plain plumage have been observed to dance, spread their wings or tails, and perform strange love-antics. The courtship of the great albatross, a most unwieldy and dull coloured bird, has been thus described by Professor Moseley: "The male, standing by the female on the nest, raises his wings, spreads his tail and elevates it, throws up his head with the bill in the air, or stretches it straight out, or forwards, as far as he can, and then utters a curious cry." ”

“ The Australian podargi— huge goatsuckers—build very similar nests, and their white eggs are protected in the same manner. Some large and powerful birds, as the swans, herons, pelicans, cormorants, and storks, lay white eggs in open nests; but they keep careful watch over them, and are able to drive away intruders. On the whole, then, we see that, while white eggs are conspicuous, and therefore especially liable to attack by egg-eating animals, they are concealed from observation in many and various ways. ”

“ How the "Goat-Suckers" came by their Name.—Mr. A. R. Wallace calls attention to an interesting observation made by Charles Waterton, which throws some light on the origin of one of the superstitions of natural history. Ever since the time of Aristotle, at least, the belief has prevailed that the bird known as the "goat-sucker" (Caprimulgus) actually sucks goats or cows. According to Pliny, the goat-sucker "enters the fold and flies to the udders of the goats in order to suck the milk." ”

“ As soon as it is night, swarms of goat-suckers suddenly make their appearance, wheeling about in a noiseless, ghostly manner, in chase of night-flying insects. They sometimes descend and settle on a low branch, or even on the pathway close to where one is walking, and then squatting down on their heels, are difficult to distinguish from the surrounding soil. One kind has a long forked tail. In the daytime they are concealed in the wooded ilhas, where I very often saw them crouched and sleeping on the ground in the dense shade. They make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground. ”

“ When they look for the diachok, Simpleton will be sure to tell them all about it. So we had better hide the body in some other place, and kill a goat and bury it in the cellar." This they did accordingly. And after several days had passed the people asked the noodle if he had seen the diachok. "Yes," he answered. "I killed him some time ago with my hatchet, and my brothers carried him to the cellar." They seize upon him and compel him to go down into the cellar and bring out the body. He gets hold of the goat's head, and asks, "Was your diachok dark-haired?" ”