1629. Caprimuigas monticolus monticolus

(1829) Caprimulgus monticolus monticolus Franklin.
FRANKLIN'S NIGHTJAR.
Caprimulgus monticolus monticolus, Fauna B. I., Birds, 2nd ed. vol. iv, p. 370.
This Nightjar has a very wide range, being found over the whole of India as far South as Mysore and Travancore, In the North¬-West it occurs over the greater part of the Punjab but not in Sind ; thence East through the whole of Northern India and the whole of Burma about as far South as Moulmain. Birds from the Shan States are nearer the richly coloured rufous Chinese form.
It breeds fairly commonly up to 4,000 feet and sometimes rather higher. Jones obtained eggs in the Bhagat State at 4,000 feet, but Whistler says that it breeds near Simla also. Primrose took several clutches below Darjiling at about 4,000 feet and one pair 2,000 feet higher than this ; in the Assam hills it is common up to 3,000, less so up to 4,000, but does breed occasionally up to 6,000 feet. Near Dehra Dun Osmaston found it very common between 1,000 and 2,500 feet.
About this latter place they nearly always breed in dry water¬courses where there are tufts of grass about. This predilection for grass seems very general. In Sylhet Primrose found them breeding in some number in the “grassy and stony tilas round the tea-garden,” “tilas” being small hills (Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc. vol. xiv, p. 594, 1893).
In the Bombay Presidency, again, Davidson records them as breeding “in open waste ground, often stony and bare but with coarse grass growing over it.”
In Burma Davison says it breeds in forest : “The forest is very scanty, being composed of moderate-sized deciduous trees, inter¬spersed with thorny bamboos and brambly shrubs, but with little or no undergrowth.” In the hills of Assam i saw more birds breeding in jungle than in the open, but even here they often chose hill-sides with long grass growing over them hut interspersed with bare stony patches here and there, where the birds laid their eggs.
In the Punjab they sometimes breed in very open stony ground. Wait (Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc. vol. xxxi, p. 821, 1926) writes “This species frequents stony hills lying between two and three thousand feet, from which small ravines, well covered with ‘Phulak’ (Acacia modesta) and wild olive-trees and bushes of various kinds, lead down into cultivated valleys. The hills themselves are bare except for a small, thick-set and thorny bush called Kanda (Gymnosporea zeyliana). The eggs are laid on stony ground, dotted with small bushes, in close proximity to a ravine. The eggs rest on bare ground among the stones, at the foot of, or fairly close to, a small bush or plant.”
* I can find no special character from which a trivial name could be given to this bird beyond the wholly white outer tail-feathers. I therefore retain the old name.
The eggs are of the indicus type, with the ground varying from pale salmon-pink to very rich deep salmon blotched in the usual manner with deeper red and red-brown with underlying marks of lavender-pink.
In shape and texture the eggs are normal but the surface is— on an average—more glossy than it is in most Nightjars’ eggs.