BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 239 
a few of these peculiar birds may now be seen over the metrop- 
olis, between the first of June and the 20th of August, when 
they gather their young, now full plumaged, into flocks, and 
move off so openly that the final flight is not difficult to recog- 
nize. 
Like its wonderful cousin, the Whip-poor-will, it builds no 
nest, and seems to care little where the spot may be chosen to 
deposit its two eggs, from an opening in the dense woods to 
the corner of the cornfield or the back-pasture. The eggs are 
dirty-white in color, and dotted all over with obsolete slate- 
color and spots of lavender. The male divides the sacrifices of 
incehation with the female. 
In their search for food, which like the Swifts, is always on the 
wing, they may be seen rising to immense altitudes, where they 
course through the air in every direction, or descend to just 
above the tops of the loftiest forest trees, where they skim 
about, the very emblems of the grace of motion. During the 
mating and incubating season, the male has a habit of zigzaging 
his way upward toa considerable elevation, uttering a note 
which sounds like the syllable scape, slightly drawn out, and 
repeated about every three seconds, till he has attained his 
elevation, when he suddenly closes his wings, opens his capa- 
cious mouth, encircled with strong bristles, and head pointed 
directly downward, he descends with the velocity of a falling 
stone, to near the earth, producing a bellowing sound which 
culminates with a short, bold turn upward, from which, and 
his bat-like crepuscular habits, he obtains the inelegant cogno- 
men, ‘‘Bull-bat,’” in the middle and southern states. Of gen- 
eral distribution throughout the state, they are quite restricted 
to localities, presumably determined by the kinds and quantities 
of their food. 
Reports from local observers establish their fairly common 
numbers in the Red river valley and the Mille Lacs regions, 
according to F. L. Washburn’s Report. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Above, greenish black, with but little mottling on the head 
and back; wing coverts varied with grayish; scapulars with 
yellowish-rufous; a nuchal band of fine gray mottling, behind 
which is another coarser one of rufous spots; a white V-shaped 
mark on the throat; behind this a collar of pale rufous blotches, 
and another on the breast of grayish mottling; under parts 
banded transversely with dull yellowish, or reddish-white and 
brown; wing quills quite uniformly brown; the five outer pri- 
