General Notes 14.9 



GENERAL NOTES 



NIGHTHAWKS NESTING ON A CITY ROOF. 



June 21, 1915, my attention was arrested by the peculiar actions 

 of a pair of nighthawks as I was walking, in the early fevening, 

 down the principal street in the city of Nashua, N. H. The birds 

 were persistently hanging about the roof of a certain flat-topped 

 building, occasionally making a headlong dive and failing to re- 

 appear for several minutes. Then up they would sail again into 

 the air, to resume their hawking. I became convinced that the 

 birds were breeding there, and the next day made an investiga- 

 tion. Hardly had I lifted off the skylight and poked my head 

 above the level of the roof, when one of the birds, whose white 

 throat-patch and white tail-band proved it to be the male, fell 

 fluttering a few feet away, apparently desperately hurt, — an old 

 trick with the ground nesting birds. Careful search at last dis- 

 covered two tiny young, completely covered with mottled gray and 

 white down. There was no attempt at a nest. The flat roof was 

 covered with tar and pebbles, and the eggs had been deposited 

 directly upon these. So remarkable was the protective coloration 

 that the young were wholly invisible except on close scrutiny. In 

 fact, had I not been looking sharply, I might have stepped upon 

 them unawares. The mottling exactly simulated the pebbles, or 

 the granite rocks on which these birds ordinarily nest in pastures. 

 The mottling extended even to the tips of the bills. 



Here is a bird that has taken to modern improvements. A 

 balustrade surrounded the roof, making it impossible for the young 

 to fall. High up in the air, in the midst of the crowded city, 

 safe from hawks, owls, cats and other predatory creatures, the 

 nighthawk rears her young in perfect security. 



Obliged to leave the city, I was unable to follow up the family 

 history. This year (1916), however, the birds again nested on the 

 same roof. June 2 I found two eggs, mottled very much like the 

 young birds, and invisible except at close range. Both parent 

 birds were on the roof, the female on the eggs while the male, by 

 desperate fluttering, vainly sought to divert us from his treasures. 

 Nine days later the eggs were seen to be in an advanced state of 

 incubation. June 17, I found two feeble young, evidently just 

 hatched. Long continued rains had soaked the roof, and it was 

 wet underneath the young birds, but they were dry and warm 

 under their father's protecting wings. And here I wish to offer 

 a curious observation. While I invariably found the female on the 

 eggs, I never found her in the daytime on the young. Always it 



