140 THE Brrps Asout Us. 
Like the whippoorwill, it lays its eggs directly on 
the ground (sometimes on the flat roofs of houses) 
and particularly in open stony pastures with a south- 
ern outlook. 
In August and later they seem attracted to towns 
and their immediate neighborhood, and often dart 
down into the streets as familiarly as a chimney- 
swift. Late in the summer they seem to be almost 
gregarious, and sometimes a hundred or more will 
be at one time in sight. They are now migrating. 
The Chuck-will’s-widow is a Southern species 
that does not venture north of Virginia. Its habits 
are essentially those of the whippoorwill, the differ- 
ence in the “ song,” as indicated by the bird’s common 
name, being the most marked variation. Taken to- 
gether, these are three most curious birds, and it is 
not strange that considerable superstition is con- 
nected with them in the minds of unlearned people. 
There are four Swifts in the United States, allied 
in habits and familiar through their abundance to the 
people of the districts they inhabit. In the Eastern 
or Atlantic seaboard States the omnipresent Chimney- 
swallow is known to every one. Itisa migratory bird, 
coming early in spring and staying until late. The 
statement of Nuttall that they all disappear about the 
first week in August is now quite an error and prob- 
ably a slip of the pen. Warren records them as late 
as October 20, and I have seen them as late as No- 
vember 10. Their coming is fairly regular, and when 
here they at once settle into the routine that seems 
to us outsiders fearfully tiresome. They select their 
chimney (or a hollow tree in remote, unsettled places), 
