206 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



now to this side uow to that, on different tacks, as if, 

 in pursuit of its prey, it had already forgotten its eggs 

 on the earth. I can see how it might easily come to be 

 regarded with superstitious awe. 



June 7, 1853. Visited my nighthawk on her nest. 

 Could hardly believe my eyes when I stood within seven 

 feet and beheld her sitting on her eggs, her head to 

 me. She looked so Saturnian, so one with the earth, so 

 sphinx-like, a relic of the reign of Saturn which Jupiter 

 did not destroy, a riddle that might well cause a man 

 to go dash his head against a stone. It was not an act- 

 ual living creature, far less a winged creature of the air, 

 but a figure in stone or bronze, a fanciful production of 

 art, like the gryphon or phoenix. In fact, with its breast 

 toward me, and owing to its color or size no bill per- 

 ceptible, it looked like the end of a brand, such as are 

 common in a clearing, its breast mottled or alternately 

 waved with dark brown and gray, its flat, grayish, 

 weather-beaten crown, its eyes nearly closed, purposely, 

 lest those bright beads should betray it, with the stony 

 cunning of the Sphinx. A fanciful work in bronze to 

 ornament a mantel. It was enough to fill one with awe. 

 The sight of this creature sitting on its eggs impressed 

 me with the venerableness of the globe. There was 

 nothing novel about it. All the while, this seemingly 

 sleeping bronze sphinx, as motionless as the earth, was 

 watching me with intense anxiety through those narrow 

 slits in its eyelids. Another step, and it fluttered down 

 the hill close to the ground, with a wabbling motion, as 

 if touching the ground now with the tip of one wing, 

 now with the other, so ten rods to the water, which it 



