34 PASSERES. CAPRIMULGID^. 



but considerably larger, with a conspicuous white 

 spot on each wing. They winnow, however, rather 

 more than swallows, and more frequently depress 

 one or the other side ; and the body and tail behind 

 the wings is rather longer. Their general appear- 

 ance, their sudden quick doublings, their rushing, 

 careering flight, and their long, narrow, arcuated 

 wings, are so like those of swallows, that after being 

 familiar with them, I have often been unable to 

 determine at the first glance, whether a particular 

 bird were a caprimulgus or a swallow. Like them 

 the Piramidig is pursuing flying insects ; and though 

 the prey, from its great height, and probably its 

 minute size, is invisible from the earth, we may very 

 often observe that it is captured, by a sudden arrest- 

 ing of the career, and by the swift zigzag dodgings, or 

 almost stationary flutterings, that ensue. I do not 

 think the prey is ordinarily larger than minute 

 diptera, hymen optera, and coleoptera ; for I have 

 not been able to detect anything flying where these 

 birds were hawking, even when their flight was sufli- 

 ciently low to allow of insects as large as a bee 

 being distinctly seen. " Mosquito hawk," is one of 

 the appellations familiarly given to the bird, 

 and doubtless not without ground. I am con- 

 firmed in this supposition, by the fact that swallows, 

 whose prey is known to be minute, are usually 

 hawking in the same region of the air, and in com- 

 pany with the Piramidigs. By the term " company," 

 however, I must not be understood as implying any- 

 thing like association, which does not seem to ex- 

 ist even between these birds themselves ; they are 



