CHORDEDILES POPETUE : NIGHT-HAWK OR BULL-BAT. 55 



are uniformly covered with down, variegated above, plain 

 below. The design of this provision is evidently pro- 

 tection from the damp ground on which the young rest. 

 In the several instances of nesting I have found, there 

 was nothing whatever between the birds and the earth ; 

 but occasionally, it is said, a few leaves or straws lie 

 underneath them. A favorite nesting-place, in the West, 

 is the little mounds of loose soil thrown up by the 

 gophers, either in open fields, or by the edge of woods. 

 The birds are also said to lay on the mould of stumps 

 and logs, but I have never found eggs in such situation's. 

 One of the two eggs may be hatched sooner than the 

 other ; in one instance I found an interval of three days 

 to elapse, during which I frequently visited a nesting 

 place. The female, on each occasion, remained near 

 her charge until nearly trodden upon, and then fluttered 

 off, making believe she was crippled, as perfectly as I 

 ever saw the pious fraud performed in my life. Not 

 having much, if any, legs to be lame in, she simulated a 

 broken wing, fluttering and pitching about in the grass, 

 at no time more than a few feet off. The statement 

 that the bird will remove her young, if disturbed, is true. 

 The bird I am alluding to carried them to another hillock, 

 after my second visit, but only a couple of yards away." 

 Late in the summer, when all the birds are on wing, 

 great troops of Night-hawks collect together, and may be 

 seen coursing in the manner above described, crossing 

 and recrossing each other's path in the air, until it be- 

 comes too dark to trace their flight any longer. As soon 

 as the gnats and midgets disappear with the cool weather 

 of September, their insatiable pursuers bend strong wings 

 to the southward journey. 



