232 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



hawk,** 9 first cousin to the whippoorwill. An- 

 other and another I count until five are there, 

 their long pointed wings cleaving the air with 

 a gracefulness of motion unexcelled by other 

 winged creature. Up and down, in and out, in 

 long gradient curves they swiftly move, the 

 white spots gleaming prettily in the sunlight. 

 Two hundred feet and more in air they circle, 

 catching, as their darting movements show, many 

 a form of insect life for their evening meal. It 

 is doubtless a family hunting in unison, hawk- 

 ing together and perhaps uttering at intervals, 

 one unto another, some word of cheer or com- 

 ment on the chase. 



Many beetles, usually regarded as rare, are 

 found to be common enough once their food, be 

 it plant or animal, is well known. Near the 

 camp this eve I ran across a "stink-horn" fun- 

 gus, 90 one of the first I had seen for years. It 

 has a cylindrical horn-like stem > seven or eight 

 inches in length, of a spongy or very porous 

 texture and bearing a handsome veil-like cap at 

 the summit. Its most striking character, how- 

 ever, is an overpowering foetid odor which smells 

 to heaven. It is worse than that exhaled by the 

 most rotten of carrion, yet very attractive to 

 some insects whose ideas of fragrance seem to 

 run to stinks. Happening to remember that a 



89 Chordeiles virginianus Gmel. w Dictyophora duplicata Bosc. 



