TU - Birds of Massachusetts. 191 
can hardly walk on the ground, nor even stand erect 
without resting on its breast. When it grows dark, 
it alights on the earth, or on fences, where it passes 
the night, giving a squeak now and then, as if it 
were still following its prey in dreams. 
In May, the female deposits her muddy colored 
and freckled eggs on the naked ground, without any 
sort of preparation. The young, like those of the 
preceding species, are sufficiently guarded, by the 
resemblance of the down, which covers them, to the 
ground, in which they nestle. The food of the 
night hawk consists of insects, which it secures and 
swallows while flying. It is strange that Wilson was 
obliged to take so much pains to show that this and 
the whippoorwill are different birds, when, beside 
that one flies by day and the other by night, the 
whippoorwill is so formed, that he can walk firmly 
and fast, while the night hawk can hardly support 
itself on the ground, and, when it perches, is obliged 
to stand on the branch lengthwise, in order to lean 
upon its breast. Beside this, the closed wings of the 
former do not extend so far as the tail by two iuches, 
while those of the night hawk are longer than the 
tail. In the night hawk the tail is forked, while 
that of the whippoorwill is rounded. It shows that 
Wilson labored in a field which had been very little 
exploted, and it is wonderful that he did not leave 
more errors to be corrected, and deficiencies to be 
supplied, by later observers. 
