540 NATURAL HISTORY. 



again in the spring. If you intimate that possibly they have made a mis- 

 take, they give you a reply, which while you believe — }'es, know — to be 

 entirely false, 3*011 cannot reply to without casting the most direct and 

 unmistakable imputations upon their honesty. They will tell you that 

 they have killed goat-suckers and found the milk in their stomachs ; and 

 that when fishing through the ice, the swallows have been brought up on 

 their hooks alive, but in a state of stupor. 



To me there is something very interesting and attractive in the appear- 

 ance of any of these nocturnal birds. The soft and fluffy character of the 

 plumage, its beautifully mottled sober colors, the bright eyes, the short, 

 broad beak, and the hairs which fringe the gape, all add to the appearance. 

 And then there is the note. The night-hawk at the pairing time goes 

 through the most wonderful evolutions. At dusk he rises high in the air, 

 and then, hawk-like, he closes or half closes his wings and darts down to 

 the earth, making a most curious booming sound. Again he mounts and 

 goes through the same evolutions. This note is difficult to describe ; pos- 

 sibly it is best appreciated by likening it to blowing into the bung-hole of 

 an empty barrel. This is not a true voice ; but is produced by the rush of 

 the air between the quills of the wings. 



Then our whippoorwill's note is always pleasing, as in the evening it 

 comes from the trees. It tells you that Will has done something wrong, 

 that he must be punished ; but in such a tone that one knows the bird is 

 sorry for the misdeeds of William. Others express only sympathy, and do 

 not ask for the punishment ; they only say - poor-will,' but in such a plain- 

 tive tone that one can hardly help thinking that their hearts are breaking 

 with grief. 



The bee-eaters of the Old World have a curious diet, eating bees, wasps, 

 and other insects, which they seize as they fly past. They are brightly 

 colored forms, which dig deep holes in sandy cliffs, in which to build their 

 nests. Strange it is that their diet does not affect them seriously, for they 

 must frequently get stung by their victims ; and the sting of a bee or 

 wasp kills many other birds of the same size, and it is even stated that a 

 duck will not survive an injury of this sort. 



In tropical America the bee-eaters are represented by the sawbills, or 

 motmots, the greatest peculiarity of which is found in the middle tail- 

 feathers. These lack the web on either side for a considerable portion of 

 their length, but on the end it remains, giving the whole the appearance 

 of a paddle. Various are the theories of naturalists and natives as to the 

 cause of this. Some say that the bird, when on the nest, keeps its tail in 

 constant motion, and thus by rubbing on the edge of the nest the mutilation 

 is produced : but this certainly cannot be the case ; for if it were, the shaft 



