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being in reality its resting time. It is at night that it rouses up 

 in search of food, as the dusk of evening approaches it begins to 

 utter its loud piping cry, and trips over the ground picking up 

 worms, insects, and young frogs, which form its chief diet. 

 The Thick-knee makes no nest, but deposits its eggs, two in 

 number, on the bare earth in fallow land, or on spots of ground 

 where flint stones are scattered about, especially amongst shingle 

 where it is interspersed with patches of grass and rushes, spotting, 

 as it were, the earth, and favouring the concealment of the female 

 and her progeny, whose plumage you will readily see assimilates 

 with the chequered and mottled appearance of the surface which 

 she has selected. The eggs are of a light yellowish brown, 

 with darker streaks and blotches. The young, after exclusion, 

 immediately follow their parents, and are then covered with down 

 of a mottled grey, which gradually gives place to the proper 

 plumage, and in about two months they are ready to fly and 

 provide for themselves. In the autumn, after the breeding season, 

 the flocks, wliich had scattered in pairs over the diff'erent breeding 

 grounds, and the young they have reared, assemble together, 

 forming large or small flocks, and prepare to take their departure, 

 quitting our latitudes for a more congenial climate, and in October 

 few, if any, are to be found in the localities previously tenanted, 

 and where at night their loud cry had resounded. 



I found that in the neighbourhood in which I stayed these 

 birds are also called the Night Hawk by the inhabitants along the 

 Kent and Sussex coast. No doubt this has originated from its 

 nocturnal habit, which name has come to be familiar with the 

 shepherds, who have the opportunity of seeing and hearing them 

 when engaged late at night among the sheep during their breeding 

 season. I found they were only known as the Night Hawk. 



