138 IN BIRD LAND. 
ently espied her sitting lengthwise on a top rail of 
the fence, while her eggs lay unprotected in the rain. 
Her dark, mottled form and sleepy, half-closed eyes 
made a quaint picture. I slowly withdrew, and as 
long as I could see her with my glass, she kept her 
perch on the rail without moving a pinion. 
On the twenty-third of June another call was made 
on the night-hawk family, when I found two odd- 
looking bairns in the nest, if nest it could be called. 
They were covered with soft down, the black and 
white of which presented a wavy appearance. ‘Their 
short, thick bills were covered with a speckled fuzz, 
except the tips. JI stooped down and smoothed 
their downy backs with my hand, but there was no 
expression of fear in their sluggish eyes. 
Both parents were present on the twenty-sixth of 
June. Fora while the male bird pursued his mate 
savagely through the air, as if venting on her his 
anger at my intrusion, and then, mounting far up 
toward the sky and poising a moment, he plunged 
toward the earth with a velocity that made my head 
dizzy, checking himself, as is his wont, with a loud 
resounding 4o-0-m-m. ‘The female again pursued 
her unwelcome visitor, swooping so near my head 
two or three times that I could have reached her 
with my cane. ‘The cock bird, curiously enough, 
never displayed so much courage, but kept at a 
safe distance. 
On the twenty-ninth the young birds had been 
moved about a half rod from the original site of the 
nest, and hopped off awkwardly into the grass when 
