From the keepers point of view it is a Night-_hawk_ in the worst sense of the word, a hawk that under cover of the night flits noiselessly but rapidly by and carries off the unsuspecting chick. But here again the observer has been misled by appearances, associating the pointed wings and long tail with the idea of a hawk, entirely overlooking the small slender claws and mandibles, which are quite unequal to the task of holding and cutting up live and resisting feathered prey, and entirely also overlooking the fact that at the time the Nightjar is abroad, the young pheasants and partridges are safely brooded under their respective mothers. Attentive observation of its habits, and examination of numerous specimens after death, have revealed the real nature of its food, which consists of moths, especially _Hepialus humuli_,[93] which from its white colour is readily seen by the bird, fernchafers and dor-beetles. Macgillivray says: “The substances which I have found in its stomach were remains of coleopterous insects of many species, some of them very large, as _Geotrupes stercorarius_, moths of great size also, and occasionally larvæ. I have seen the inner surface slightly bristled with the hairs of caterpillars, as in the Cuckoo.” He adds, “as no fragments of the hard parts of these insects ever occur in the intestine, it follows that the refuse is ejected by the mouth.” From its habit of capturing dor-beetles, the bird in some parts of the country is known as the Dor-hawk. Wordsworth has referred to it by this name in the lines— “The busy Dor-hawk chases the white moth With burring note.” Elsewhere it is called the Eve-jar, and Churn-owl. The latter name is bestowed by Gilbert White in his “Naturalist’s Summer Evening Walk”:— “While o’er the cliff the awaken’d Churn-owl hung, Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song.” In his 37th Letter to Pennant, the same author refers to it as “the _Caprimulgus_, or Fern-owl,” and gives an agreeable account of its movements as observed by himself. Amongst other things he says:—“But the circumstance that pleased me most was, that I saw it distinctly more than once put out its short leg while on the wing, and by a bend of the head deliver somewhat into its mouth. If it takes any part of its prey with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to suppose, it does these chafers. I no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is curiously furnished with a serrated claw.” Yarrell has figured the foot, in a vignette to his work on British Birds, in order to show this peculiarity of structure, the use of which has puzzled so many. The correctness of the view expressed by Gilbert White and confirmed by other authors,[94] has been disputed on the ground that many other birds, as Herons, Gannets, and, I may add, Coursers, have a pectinated claw upon the middle toe, and yet do not take insects upon the wing, or even seize their prey with their feet.