BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 349 



olive, are laid directly on the ground. The young are soon 

 able to run about, and until they can fly, are sufficiently pro- 

 tected by their resemblance to the ground. This bird is very 

 susceptible of cold ; during the severe season of 1832, many of 

 them were found dead in New England in the month of June. 

 It would be no subject of regret if they were more common in 

 Massachusetts, for their note is pleasant, heard in the silence 

 of evening, and their services in destroying insects are not 

 balanced by any injuries whatever. 



The Night Hawk, Caprirnulgus Virginianus, notwithstand- 

 ing its popular name, is much less properly called a bird of 

 night than the former. It flies in the day, even when the sun 

 is shining, and retires to rest before it is late in the evening, 

 about at the time when the whippoorwill begins his song. Its 

 wings are very large in proportion to its weight, and its flight 

 is firm and graceful ; it sweeps in circles, sometimes rising 

 high in the air, then shooting suddenly downward, with a 

 sharp squeak, which seems to say that it has caught sight of 

 its victim. In the evening, it flies lower than by day, often 

 striking off wildly from its line of flight, doubtless to pursue 

 some insect which its sharp eye has discovered. It can hardly 

 walk on the ground, nor even stand erect without resting on 

 its breast. When it grows dark, it alights on the earth, or on 

 fences, where it passes the night, giving a squeak now and 

 then, as if it were still following its prey in dreams. 



In May, the female deposits her muddy colored and freckled 

 eggs on the naked ground, without any sort of preparation. 

 The young, like those of the preceding species, are sufficiently 

 guarded, by the resemblance of the down, which covers them, 

 to the ground, in which they nestle. The food of the night 

 hawk consists of insects, which it secures and swallows while 

 flying. It is strange that Wilson was obliged to take so much 

 pains to show that this and the whippoorwill are different birds, 

 when, beside that one flies by day and the other by night, the 

 whippoorwill is so formed, that he can walk firmly and fast, 

 while the night hawk can hardly support itself on the ground, 



