came up to the wood Fred stopped short, for from out of its dark
recesses came a peculiar whirring sound, as if somebody was busy with a
spinning-wheel.

"Chur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r," went the noise, rising and falling, now farther
off, now nearer, and all the time kept up with the greatest regularity.

"Whatever is that?" said Fred to his cousins.

"Oh!" said Harry, laughing, "that's old Dame Durden spinning her yarn."

"What?" said Fred incredulously.

"There, look," said Mr Inglis, for the noise had stopped. "There goes
Harry's Dame Durden;" and just then there came swooping out of the wood
with noiseless flight, a large brown bird, which then went skimming
along by the wood-side and back to where there stood a noble beech with
wide-spreading boughs, beneath whose shade the bird went circling round
with a beautifully easy flight, sometimes keeping quite in the shade,
and every now and then rising higher up the tree; but still skimming
along almost like a swallow, "There," said Mr Inglis again, when they
had watched the bird for some minutes, "that is the way to turn
entomologist; see how easily that bird captures the moths that flit
round the tree. If we could only secure specimens like that, what rare
ones we should get sometimes of those that always fly high out of our
reach! There, did you see him catch that moth, high up above the big
bough? With what a graceful curve he turned upon the wing, caught it,
and then dipped downward. See, he must have got a mouthful, and has
gone off to the wood again, where perhaps he has nestlings."

"Well, but," said Fred, "that can't be a swallow, it is so big, and I
thought swallows were the only birds that caught flies and moths upon
the wing."

"No," said Mr Inglis, "it is not a swallow, though it has similar
habits, and always catches its prey upon the wing. It is a bird that
bears a good many different names; one of the most appropriate is that
of the `night-jar,'--though it is not really a night bird, but more of
the twilight. It is called `jar,' from the peculiar jarring noise which
you heard, just like that made by the vibrating of a spinning-wheel. In
some places they call it the `goatsucker,' from a foolish idea that it
sucked the milk from the goats, as it is sometimes seen to fly close
down to them, and, between the legs of various animals, to capture the
flies that infest them in the soft, tender parts of their bodies. A
glance at the bird's great gaping mou