BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 239 



a few of these peculiar birds may now be seen over the metrop- 

 olis, between the first of June and the 20th of August, when 

 they gather their young, now full plumaged, into flocks, and 

 move off so openly that the final flight is not difficult to recog- 

 nize. 



Like its wonderful cousin, the Whip-poor-will, it builds no 

 nest, and seems to care little where the spot may be chosen to 

 deposit its two eggs, from an opening in the dense woods to 

 the corner of the cornfield or the back-pasture. The eggs are 

 dirty-white in color, and dotted all over with obsolete slate- 

 color and spots of lavender. The male divides the sacrifices of 

 incubation with the female. 

 In their search for food, which like the Swifts, is always on the 

 wing, they may be seen rising to immense altitudes, where they 

 course through the air in every direction, or descend to just 

 above the tops of the lof uiest forest trees, where they skim 

 about, the very emblems of the grace of motion. During the 

 mating and incubating season, the male has a habit of zigzaging 

 his way upward to a considerable elevation, uttering a note 

 which sounds like the syllable scape, slightly drawn out, and 

 repeated about every three seconds, till he has attained his 

 elevation, when he suddenly closes his wings, opens his capa- 

 cious mouth, encircled with strong bristles, and head pointed 

 directly downward, he descends with the velocity of a falling 

 stone, to near the earth, producing a bellowing sound which 

 culminates with a short, bold turn upward, from which, and 

 his bat-like crepuscular habits, he obtains the inelegant cogno- 

 men, "Bull- bat," in the middle and southern states. Of gen- 

 eral distribution throughout the state, they are quite restricted 

 to localities, presumably determined by the kinds and quantities 

 of their food. 



Reports from local observers establish their fairly common 

 numbers in the Red river valley and the Mille Lacs regions, 

 according to F. L. "Washburn's Report. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Above, greenish black, with but little mottling on the head 

 and back; wing coverts varied with grayish; scapulars with 

 yellowish-rufous; a nuchal band of fine gray mottling, behind 

 which is another coarser one of rufous spots; a white V-shaped 

 mark on the throat; behind this a collar of pale rufous blotches, 

 and another on the breast of grayish mottling; under parts 

 banded transversely with dull yellowish, or reddish-white and 

 brown; wing quills quite uniformly brown; the five outer pri- 



