N1GHTHAWK. 



brown ; it is laid on the ground, and there are not likely 

 to be more than two ; these are deposited in a stony 

 field, or even on bare rock. There is no pretense at nest- 

 building. 



The Nighthawk has no song ; but that one bass note 

 which he produces with his wings proclaims him the bass 

 trumpet player of Nature's orchestra. He is a sky- 

 scraper and an erratic wanderer on the whig. He seems 

 to go no way in particular, and to have no place in par- 

 ticular for which he shapes his course ; it is a decidedly 

 4 'go-as-you-please " performance with an obligate rasp- 

 ing, double-toned accompaniment of geeps, and it will 

 presently end as if he had been shot. Down he drops 

 vertically eighty feet or more, then suddenly recovers 

 himself, and you hear a subdued boom like that of the 

 bass trumpet in the brass band ! 



00 - oo -m! 



It is he, and not, as you may at first suppose, " the bull- 

 frog in the pool." The remarkable tone is produced by 

 the rush of air through the bird's primaries I Wilson 

 makes a mistake about the cause of the noise which is a 

 bit amusing ; he says, " he suddenly precipitates him- 

 self head foremost and with great rapidity down sixty 

 or eighty feet, wheeling up again as suddenly, at which 

 instant is heard a loud booming sound very much re- 

 sembling that produced by blowing strongly into the 

 bunghole of an empty hogshead, and which is doubtless 

 produced by the sudden expansion of his capacious mouth 

 while he passes through the air." Alas ! alas 1 had Wil- 

 son only understood the principles of diaphonics, he 

 would have known that the mouth of the bird must 

 necessarily expand to the size of the " empty hogshead" 

 to support his theory I 



