sit where it was, and in a few seconds (before I had finished making the note) flew off after the other.
A little before nine a bird passed near quaw-eeing. Another flew by a little after, also quaw-eeing, and clapping its wings in a rather peculiar manner. No doubt they were the pair. At a few minutes past nine one of the birds came back, hovered a little over the eggs, then darted to one side, and settled on the ground a little way from them. Soon it walked up to them (or rather waddled,[1] the legs being quite invisible); and now I witnessed a curious action. I must say that just previously, when both birds were away, I had left my shelter in order to pick another nettle or two, and thus give myself a still clearer view, and I had then noticed that the two eggs were rather wide apart. As the bird now got on to them (which it did by pushing itself along the ground), it must, I think, have moved them still farther from each other. At any rate, it became necessary, in the bird's opinion, to alter their position, and in order to do this it went into a very peculiar attitude. It, as it were, stood up on its breast, with its tail raised almost perpendicularly in the air, so that it looked somewhat like a peg-top placed peg upwards on the broad end, the legs being at no time visible. Thus poised, the bird pressed with the under part of its broad beak, or, as one may say, with its chin, first one egg and then the other against and under its breast,[2] and, so holding it, moved backwards and forwards over the ground, presenting a strange and unbirdlike appearance. The ground, however, was not even, and, despite the bird's efforts to get the eggs together, one of them (as I saw) rolled down a little declivity. At the bottom some good-sized pieces of fir-bark lay partly buried in the sand, and under one of these the egg became wedged. The bird was unable to get it out so as to bring it up the hill again to where the other egg lay, for the bark, by presenting an edge, prevented it from getting its chin against the further side of the wedged egg so as
- ↑ This word, though I could think of no better one at the time, does not properly express the bird's motion. As will appear later on, the Nightjar is quite at home on the ground.
- ↑ In such a position the bristles fringing the gape would help to keep the egg secure, whilst the toothed claw would help the bird to get a grip on the ground in its strained attitude; but I do not estimate this as any special adaptation in relation to these odd and probably infrequent proceedings.
