8 SOME CANADIAN BIttDa 



old-fashioned Hontime'nt that night is the time for rest. Exceptions 

 there are to most good mien, and de.siroiw as I am of clearing a 

 r.ialigned bird from cliarges of bad habits, candor compels me to 

 admit that I have hoard the cry of tliis bird horn mid-air at mid- 

 night. But the moon was full, the sky was clear, and the air 

 balmy ; the night was much too fine to waste it all in slumber. 

 I could not blame the bird ; I envied hhn. 



The semi-nocturnal or crepuscular habit is common to a large 

 number of American birds. They are not about during the middle 

 of the day, as is the habit with the majority of the European species. 

 This is one of the reasons why English people think that there are 

 but few birds in Canada ; for English birds are always active, 

 always to bo seen and heard. Driving through the country districts 

 of Canada you hear no continuous chorus of bird voices such as 

 greets the ear from the fields and hedgerows of merry England. 

 " Have we not fewer song-birds than are found in England ?" is 

 frequently asked. Quite the contrary, nmst be replied. Canada 

 can fairly boast of more species of song-birds and of more beautiful 

 bird songs than can be heard in England. But our grandest 

 carillon, the chief chorus of our sylvan voices is heard in the 

 morning only — the very early morning— at dawn, though a few of 

 our songsters reserve their sweetest strains for that quiet hour when 

 daylight dies. 



The night hawk is much inclined to fly high in the air, so high at 

 times as to be almost out of sight, yet we can follow the bird's flight 

 by the harsh grating note it continually utters, a note which has the 

 power of penetrating a remarkable distance through the air. The 

 effect, is sometimes ventriloquial, the sound appearing near at hand 

 when the bird is far away in the sky. The bird mounts upward by 

 spiral evolutions, and at intervals closes its wings and plunges head 

 first toward the earth. After descending some sixty feet or more it 

 wheels upward, and the ascent to the upper air is again made. 

 Just as the bird makes this aerial curve or wheel, a hollow booming 

 sound is heard — a phenomenon that has formed the topic for much 

 speculation. How the sound is made, by the mouth or the wings 

 or in some other way, has not yet been determined. 



On the ground, at a little distance, the night hawk looks like a bit 

 of brownish granite, though in the hand the color which predominate? 



