A?iTE OSTOMUS CAROLINENSHS. 



395 



loc.ility in daylight, some prominent object may be found like a stump, log, or a brancli 

 destitute of foliage upon which one may be reasonably certain th(.' birds alight; then by 

 hiding early in the ensuing evening in a place where the birds can be seen when they 

 come, a shot can be obtained at them, for I have observed that when they once select any 

 particular point as a resting place, they will return to it repeatedly to sing. This habit 

 once proved quite annoying to me as one selected the ornamental top of my tent-pole where 

 he would sound his loud notes continuously. He took care, however, not to settle there 

 until we were all asleep but the sound would always awaken me, when upon my making 

 the slightest noise, off he would go, only to return when I had once more begun to doze. 

 lie favored us more with his visits on moonlight nights than at other times, and proved a 

 great nuisance until I finally managed to shoot him. 



When mellowed by distance, the lay of the Chuck-will's Widow has a soft, dreamy 

 cadence which has an extremely soothing effect, for then only two of the notes are auili- 

 ble, the third and fourth, the more emphatic and harsher chuck remaining unheard. Bc- 

 .sides the notes of which I have spoken, these birds utter a croaking s<mnd when alarmed 

 or when in pursuit of their mates. When excited by a feeling of rivalry or by the sight 

 of the female, the song, like that of the Whippoorwill, is given with such rapidity that it 

 becomes a series of notes which end abruptly as the female comes sailing by, for then the 

 male starts in pursuit of her. When aroused from the ground, the birds will frequently 

 alight on a branch crosswise; in fact, they appear to have more grasping power in their 

 toes than is possessed by the Whippoorwills lor, although I have seen this latter named 

 species alight as described, yet they more often rest longitudinally on the object upon which 

 they are sitting, like the Night Hawks. 



I have had quite a number of the eggs of the Chuck-will's Widow in my possession, 

 yet I have found but one nest. I was walking through a hummock when one of those 

 black, half-wild hogs so common in Florida, jumped up from a thicket in which he had 

 been resting and made off among the palmettos. I looked after him mechanically when I 

 observed a Chuck-will's Widow start from the ground directly in front of him. As this 

 was the first of May and as I had shot a female only a day or two before which was about 

 to lay, I at once conjectured that t!ie bird had a nest there. Keeping my eyes carefully 

 on the spot, I hastened forward and, guided by the tracks of the hog, soon found the eggs. 

 There were two of them and they were lying upon the fragments of palmetto leaves with- 

 out any other attempt at a nest than a slight hollow scratched in the debris. The bird 

 must have remained on them until the nose of the intrading animal was actually over her, 

 for she appeared to start from beneath his feet and she must have moved quickly as he 

 was trotting quite briskly. Unfortunately, one of the animal's hoofs grazed an egg, break 

 ing a hole in the side, disclosing the fact that they contained embryos quite far advanced 

 which may partly account for the parent sitting so closely. 



The Chuck-will's Widows make their appearance in Florida shortly after the middle 

 of March and the eggs are deposited about the last week in April. Of the nestling and 

 subsequent changes in plumage before acquiring the adult stage, I know nothing, as the 

 birds had al.vays departed in early autumn, before my arrival in Florida. 



