444 NIGHT-HAWK. 



diately preceding a north-east storm. At this time also they 

 abound in the extensive meadows on the Schuylkill and Dela- 

 ware, where I have counted fifteen skimming over a single field 

 in an evening. On shooting some of these, on the fourteenth of 

 August, their stomachs were almost exclusively filled with crick- 

 ets. From one of them I took nearly a common snuff-box full 

 of these insects, all seemingly fresh swallowed. 



By the middle or twentieth of September very few of these 

 birds are to be seen in Pennsylvania; how far south they go, 

 or at what particular time they pass the southern boundaries of 

 the United States I am unable to say. None of them winter in 

 Georgia. 



The ridiculous name Goatsucker, which was first bestowed 

 on the European species from a foolish notion that it sucked the 

 teats of the goats, because probably it inhabited the solitary 

 heights where they fed, which nickname has been since applied 

 to the whole genus, I have thought proper to omit. There is 

 something- worse than absurd in continuing to brand a whole 

 family of birds with a knavish name, after they are universally 

 known to be innocent of the charge. It is not only unjust, but 

 tends to encourage the belief in an idle fable that is totally des- 

 titute of all foundation. 



The Night-hawk is nine inches and a half in length, and 

 twenty-three inches in extent; the upper parts are of a very 

 deep blackish brown, unmixed on the primaries, but thickly 

 sprinkled or powdered on the back scapulars and head with in- 

 numerable minute spots and streaks of a pale cream colour, in- 

 terspersed with specks of reddish; the scapulars are barred with 

 the same, also the tail coverts and tail, the inner edges of which 

 are barred with white and deep brownish black for an inch and 

 a half from the tip, where they are crossed broadly with a band 

 of white, the two middle ones excepted, which are plain deep 

 brown, barred and sprinkled with light clay; a spot of pure 

 white extends over the five first primaries, the outer edge of 

 the exterior feather excepted, and about the middle of the wing; 

 a triangular spot of white also marks the throat, bending up on 



