“Precisely. But it does not make this humming sound for the mere love of hearing it; its object is to snap up the twilight-flying insects as it passes with distended beak. Big beetles sporting in the evening air, June-bugs, and other plump winged creatures disappear in the viscous gullet, while small butterflies, moths, gnats, and mosquitoes become entangled by the dozen in the fatal glue. If the game is large, the bird swallows it at once, whole and still alive; if small, it waits until it has caught a certain number and then swallows them all in one mouthful.” “But does it really swallow big beetles and June-bugs alive?” Emile asked. “You can readily understand that in its headlong chase the bird has no time to dismember its captives. Pouncing upon the insect with wide-open beak, snapping it up, and gulping it down—all this it does as it flies, without a moment’s pause. No sooner is the plumpest prey captured than down it goes, alive and struggling, into the bird’s crop.” “A dozen of that sort of game must stir up a big rumpus in the bird’s crop,” was Emile’s opinion. “Almost any other creature in the night-jar’s place would have its digestion ruined by a brisk company of coleopters kicking about in the stomach and tickling its walls with their rough and prickly legs; but I am inclined to believe the bird has the means of quieting them immediately by smothering them with its digestive juices. As it carries on the business of stuffing its crop with large live beetles, it ought to know the secret of how to prevent their making a hole in its stomach. But that does not lessen my admiration for its digestive powers. No creature enjoys a more remarkable immunity from dyspepsia. “On a near view the night-jar is not a pretty bird. Its flat skull; its tremendously yawning beak, which seems to split the whole head in two; its wide-open gullet, red and slimy and powdered with the remains of moths recently devoured; its large and prominent eyes—all these give it somewhat the appearance of a toad. That is why it is sometimes called the flying toad. Another common name for it is goat-sucker, based on a false belief as to one of its habits. It likes to visit pastures and sheepfolds, where it chases the beetles to be found there. Noting its frequent appearance among the sheep and goats, shepherds imagined it came there to suck their milk. If they had watched it more closely they would have seen the absurdity of any such notion. A bird suck? What nonsense! But the more ridiculous an idea is, the more likely it is to spread, and the absurd name of goat-sucker is better known in many places than the appropriate and expressive one of night-jar.