CHUCK- WILL' s-wroow 147 



Order CAPRIMULGIFORMES 

 Family CAPRIMULGIDAE : Goatsuckers 



ANTROSTOMUS CAROLINENSIS (Gmelin) 

 CHUCK-WILL'S-WIDOW 



Plates 18-20 



HABITS 

 Contributed by Alexandeii Speunt, Je. 



Dusk falls gently over the salt marshes, which reach out from a 

 shoreline where moss-bannered live oaks and stately pines rustle 

 softly in the late March breeze. A faint fragrance of jessamine 

 hangs in the air; the sleepy note of a cardinal echoes from a cassina 

 thicket, while atop a tall palmetto a mockingbird salutes the coming 

 night with a burst of melody. Silence comes and the stars appear, 

 glinting in golden splendor through the purple gloom. 



Suddenly through the air comes another sound, a sharp, clear-cut, 

 insistent chant. Splitting the silences, it strikes clappingly upon 

 one's ears, ringing with startling emphasis, unmistakable, thrilling 

 and welcome. The first chuck-will's-widow has returned to the 

 Carolina low country, and spring is definitely back again ! 



There is something about nocturnal birds that fascinate one 

 strangely. Doubtless the cloak of darkness that shrouds their move- 

 ments and activities has a great deal to do with it. One cannot but 

 wonder at their comings and goings; how they pursue their hunting 

 amid the gloom. Their voices too lend much to the fascination, for 

 the notes seem a part of the night itself, just as the bodies of the 

 birds themselves seem more like detached and living particles of 

 darkness than of flesh and feathers. 



All my life I have lived amid the haunts of some of these furtive 

 kindred of the dusk, but the chuck-will's-widow above all .seems to 

 typify the mystery of the night and invests it with a sense of in- 

 tangible yet satisfying tranquillity. It has alwaj^s seemed to me that 

 those beautiful lines, written of the cuckoo, might be even more 

 applicable to the chuck-will's-widow, for, in truth, much of the time 

 it does not seem a bird at all, but simply "a wandering voice." With- 

 out brilliant plumage or grace of form, it nevertheless possesses 

 undoubted character, and long acquaintance with the bird only in- 

 creases the interest that is bound to be aroused in any study of its life 

 and habits. 



Spring. — Generally speaking, the chuck-will's-widow arrives in 

 the South in March. There is some indication that a few birds 



