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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



Nesting Habits of the Nighthawk 



Upon city roofs and house-tops would 

 not generally be supposed a profitable 

 place to look for birds' nests, yet such 

 a location is not uncommonly chosen by 



While both young and adult were 

 colored remarkably like the gravel and 

 tar of the roof, the blotched, gray down 

 of the young especially resembled the 

 stones upon which they squatted, and 



ADULT NIGHTHAWK ON WALL. 



the nighthawk ; perhaps not for its nest, 

 properly speaking, — for there is abso- 

 lutely no trace of such, — but to deposit 

 its eggs and rear its young. 



It was high up on the flat, gravel roof 

 of a business block, along one of the 

 busiest streets of Nashua, N. H., that I 

 first made a visit to such a home on the 

 twenty-sixth of June. As we stepped 

 out from the skylight onto the roof and 

 looked about, there seemed to be nothing 

 visible but the coarse, gravelly floor, en- 

 closed on all sides by a three-foot coping. 



It was several minutes before we dis- 

 covered the parent bird brooding two 

 downy young, — near the end of the roof, 

 under a beam which had been placed 

 across, as a support for a sign. Although 

 in plain sight, they were practically con- 

 cealed by their remarkable "protective 

 coloring," which was much more apparent 

 in life than the pictures would indicate. 

 The eggs, I learned, had been hatched out 

 in the middle of the roof; the young 

 birds having evidently been transferred 

 to this position for shade. 



When within ten or twelve feet, the 

 brooding bird, — which we supposed to be 

 the mother, — fluttered along the roof as 

 if injured, to lure us away from her help- 

 less young. A few yards away she would 

 He with her wings spread and mouth 

 open, uttering a faint twitter and seem- 

 ingly unable to fly. When followed she 

 flew to the coping, repeating this perfor- 

 mance until closely approached, when she 

 flew ofif, but soon returned and remained 

 silently watching us. 



THE FLUTTERING ANTICS OF THE ADULT 

 BIRD. 



they were quite invisible a few yards 

 away. They were apparently not many 

 days old and huddled closely together 

 with half-closed eyes. 



Four days later we again visited these 

 young, securing several more pictures, 

 and their growth and development in this 

 short period seemed remarkable. They 

 appeared nearly twice their former size 

 and were now covered with pin- feathers. 

 We noticed that the blotched markings 

 extended even to their bills, making their 

 belonging with the surroundings almost 

 perfect. On our approach at this visit, 

 the adult bird, which had been brooding 

 one of the young in the same location as 

 previously, left its charge and repeated 

 its fluttering antics almost at our feet. 

 Curiously enough, our picture of this bird 

 shows a broken, white band near the end 

 of the tail. This is supposed to be a dis- 

 tinguishing mark of the male bird, and 

 would therefore indicate that he shares 

 in the brooding of the young, — a trait 

 which I have been unable to find pre- 

 viously mentioned by any writer. The 

 other young was alone, several yards 

 away, and after photographing them sep- 

 arately the two were placed together 

 as shown in the picture. In neither case, 

 although we made a thorough search, 

 did we see any sign of the other parent 

 bird. 



A third visit to this little family, on the 

 tenth of July, disclosed both the young 

 and adult squatted under the shade of 

 the big cross beam, the old bird being be- 

 tween the other two, which were now 

 about two-thirds its size and showing 



