NIGHTHAWK. 
brown ; it is laid on the ground, and there are not likely 
to be more than two; these are deposited in a stony 
field, or even on bare rock. There is no pretense at nest- 
building. 
The Nighthawk has no song ; but that one bass note 
which he produces with his wings proclaims him the bas¢ 
trumpet player of Nature’s orchestra. He is a sky- 
scraper and an erratic wanderer on the wing. Heseems 
to go no way in particular, and to have no place in par- 
ticular for which he shapes his course ; it is a decidedly 
‘* 90-as-you-please ” performance with an obligato rasp- 
ing, double-toned accompaniment of geeps, and it will 
presently end as if he had been shot. Down he drops 
vertically eighty feet or more, then suddenly recovers 
himself, and you hear a subdued boom like that of the 
bass trumpet in the brass band! 
, 
Boo — 00 - mi 
It is he, and not, as you may at first suppose, ‘‘ the bull- 
frog in the pool.” The remarkable tone is produced by 
the rush of air through the bird’s primaries! Wilson 
makes a mistake about the cause of the noise which is a. 
bit amusing; he says, ‘‘ he suddenly precipitates him- 
self head foremost and with great rapidity down sixty 
or eighty feet, wheeling up again as suddenly, at which 
instant is heard a loud booming sound very much re- 
sembling that produced by blowing strongly into the 
bunghole of an empty hogshead, and which is doubtless 
produced by the sudder expansion of his capacious mouth 
while he passes through the air.” Alas! alas! had Wil- 
son only understood the principles of diaphonics, he 
would have known that the mouth of the bird must 
necessarily expand to the size of the ‘‘ empty hogshead” 
to support his theory ! 
BY) 
ity 
