Protective Colouring

Abstract

THE following instance of apparent consciousness of protective colouring in a young bird seems worth recording. On August 14, while walking in my orchard, which being on a steep slope is terraced with low stone walls, I put up a young Night-jar (Caprimulgus europœus) which flew straight to the top of one of the walls and flattened itself down on a broad flat stone. As it was within 6 feet of a hedge on one side, and there were gooseberry bushes, &c., on the other, there was no lack of cover if it had wished to hide. I left it there, and coming again two hours later found it in the same spot. Its colouring matched the stone on which it was lying so closely that had not one known that it was there, it would probably have been overlooked. On being closely approached it flew to another of the walls, higher up, and crouched down in exactly the same way. I then tried to catch it with a butterfly net, when it flew over the hedge to a rough field on the opposite side of the valley from which it had, no doubt, come.