BIRDS OF 



Egg«, 2 ; marbled and clouded like the plumage of the birds ; deposited 

 in a hollow or a rotten log, oi on the ground on a dry bank among leaves. 



This well-known bird crosses the Southern frontier of 

 Ontario about the loth of May, nnd should the weather be 

 mild its loud and well-known cry is soon heard at night at 

 many different points throughout the country. It is seldom 

 seen abroad by day, except when disturbed from its resting place 

 in some shady part of the woods, when it glides off noiselessly' like 

 a great moth. Disliking the glare of the light it avoids the 

 city, but not unfrequently perches on the roof of the farm house, 

 startling the inmates with its cry, which is there heard with 

 great distinctness. 



This is the only song of the bird, and it is kept up 

 during the breeding season, after which it is seldom heard. 

 We see so little of these birds that it is difficult to tell exactly 

 at what time they leave us, but it is most likely early in 

 September that they "fold their teiits like the Arabs, and as 

 silentlv steal aw^av." 



Genus CHORDEILES Swainson. 



171. CHORDEILES VIRGINIANUS (Gmel.). 420. 



Nighthawk. 



Above mottled with black, brown, gray and tawny, the former in excess , 

 below from the breast transversely barred with blackish and white or pale 

 fulvous ; throat in the male with a large white, in the female tawny, cross- 

 bar ; tail blackish, with distant pale marbled cross-bars and a large white 

 spot (wanting in the female) on one or both webs of all the feathers toward 

 the end ; quills dusky, unmarked except by one large white spot on five outer 

 primaries about midway between their baseband tip ; in the female this area 

 is restricted or not pure white. Length, about 9 ; wing, 8 ; tail, 5. 



Hab. Xorthern and Eastern North America, east of the Great Plains, 

 south through tropical America to Buenos Ayres. 



Eggs, 2 ; veined and freckled with lavender and gray ; deposited on 

 rocks or on the ground, or among the gravel of a flat-roofed house in the city. 



A well-known and abundant sunmier resident, arriving from 

 the south early m May. Though a Nighthawk, it is often seen 

 abroad by day during cloudy weather, and in the evening, just 



172 



