CHUCK-WILL'S-WroOW 155 



Behavior. — Being as close kin to the whippoorwill as the chuck 

 is, it cannot be expected that its habits will vary extensively. 

 Inactive by day and a persistent hunter by night, it fulfills the usual 

 characteristics pertaining to the family. Sitting motionless on a 

 mossy log, a branch of some forest tree, or ensconced witliin a 

 natural cavity, it dozes away the daylight hours. Some observers 

 have found it sleeping in company with bats, in an obscure hollow. 

 I have never found the chuck among such company, all my daylight 

 observations being connected with the bird's occupancy of some low 

 limb, or on the ground itself. 



When flushed, it rises with easy, fitful wafts of silent wings, alter- 

 nating the beats with periods of sailing. Frequently it describes a 

 curve and swings back near the spot from which it was flushed. 

 Fairly close approach js allowed, even after the bird has been dis- 

 turbed and alighted again. Doubtless it puts a great deal of de- 

 pendence upon the wonderfully protective coloration of the plumage. 



In the Carolina low country the chuck is very fond of roosting in 

 the sandy roads so characteristic of the rural districts. Passing 

 along at dusk, one may see the reflection of the eyes plainly in the 

 glare of a car's headlights. At times a roosting bird is disturbed 

 under these conditions by day, and I have had them flush and come 

 directly at the car, swerving only slightly aside to pass. One bird 

 on Bulls Island, S. C, was flushed two or three times in an hour, 

 as we had occasion to pass the same spot often, and once it flew by 

 so closely that an extended arm might have touched it. This habit 

 of frequenting the sand roads is shared by the whippoorwill when 

 it is present in coastal Carolina during the winter months. 



Little or no distinction is made between these two birds in much of 

 their range. The uninformed observer takes it for granted that any 

 night bird that calls, except an owl, is a whippoorwill, and this seems 

 the more strange in a section where the chuck is abundant and the 

 whippoorwill comparatively uncommon, as in coastal Carolina. The 

 latter calls but rarely during its winter sojourn in the Charleston 

 area ; indeed, I have heard it but twice in all my years of ornitholog- 

 ical study. One of these instances was in January, the other early 

 in March. When the whippoorwill is present in this area, the chuck 

 is not, for the former leaves before the latter appears from the south. 

 In spite of this fact and the overwhelming evidence of the chuck's 

 presence and comparative absence of that of the whippoorwill, the 

 people of the low-country are far more familiar with the name of 

 the latter and credit the call of the chuck to the other bird. 



The eyes of the chuck-will's-widow reflect light admirably. Some 

 years ago E. B. Chamberlain, of the Charleston Museum, and I 

 carried out a series of experiments in "jack-lighting" amid the woods 



