138 IN BIRD LAND. 



ently espied her sitting lengthwise on a top rail of 

 the fence, while her eggs lay unprotected in the rain. 

 Her dark, mottled form and sleepy, half-closed eyes 

 made a quaint picture. I slowly withdrew, and as 

 long as I could see her with my glass, she kept her 

 perch on the rail without moving a pinion. 



On the twenty-third of June another call was made 

 on the night-hawk family, when I found two odd- 

 looking bairns in the nest, if nest it could be called. 

 They were covered with soft down, the black and 

 white of which presented a wavy appearance. Their 

 short, thick bills were covered with a speckled fuzz,- 

 except the tips. I stooped down and smoothed 

 their downy backs with my hand, but there was no 

 expression of fear in their sluggish eyes. 



Both parents were present on the twenty-sixth of 

 June. For a while the male bird pursued his mate 

 savagely through the air, as if venting on her his 

 anger at my intrusion, and then, mounting far up 

 toward the sky and poising a moment, he plunged 

 toward the earth with a velocity that made my head 

 dizzy, checking himself, as is his wont, with a loud 

 resounding Bo-o-m-7n. The female again pursued 

 her unwelcome visitor, swooping so near my head 

 two or three times that I could have reached her 

 with my cane. The cock bird, curiously enough, 

 never displayed so much courage, but kept at a 

 safe distance. 



On the twenty-ninth the young birds had been 

 moved about a half rod from the original site of the 

 nest, and hopped off awkwardly into the grass when 



