Stragglers have been observed in summer and autumn for several years in Shetland. The late Dr. Saxby saw it at Balta Sound about the end of July, skimming over the fields, and now and then alighting on the dykes, but he regarded its appearance in Shetland as merely accidental. In Ireland this bird is considered to be a regular summer visitant to favourite localities in all quarters of the island, but of rare occurrence elsewhere.[92] In colour this bird resembles a large moth, being most beautifully and delicately streaked and mottled with various shades of black, brown, grey, and buff, but in appearance it is not unlike a hawk, having long pointed wings more than seven inches in length, and a tail about five inches long. The male differs from the female in having a large heart-shaped spot upon the inner web of the first three quill feathers, and broad white tips to the two outer tail feathers on each side. The mottled brown appearance of the bird when reposing either on the ground or on the limb of a large tree, is admirably adapted to screen it from observation even within a few yards of the observer. It delights in furzy commons, wild heathery tracts, and broken hilly ground covered with ferns, particularly in the neighbourhood of woods and thickets, and is especially partial to sandy soils. I have frequently seen this bird upon the bare sand, either in a sandpit or under the lee of a furze-bush, where it appeared to be basking in the sun, and from the disturbed appearance of the soil in some places, I imagine that it dusts itself as the Skylark does, to get rid of the small parasites with which, like many other birds, it is infested. On the 16th of May this year, at Uppark, Sussex, I found one asleep on the carriage drive within twenty yards of the house. The gravel was quite warm, and the bird was so loth to be disturbed that I almost succeeded in covering it with my hat before it took wing. On another occasion in September, when strolling along the beach near Selsea, I came suddenly upon a Nightjar sitting below high-water mark on the warm shingle, where it appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the afternoon sun. It dozes away the greater part of the day, and if disturbed only flies a short distance before re-alighting. Its loud and peculiar whirring note, reminding one of the noise made by a knife-grinder’s wheel, is never heard until the evening, when, in districts where the bird is common, it resounds far and near. 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.