Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 



Nighthawk 



(Chordeiles virginianus) Goatsucker family 



Called also: NIGHTJAR; BULL-BAT; MOSQUITO HAWK; 

 WILL - O' - THE - WISP ; PISK ; PIRAMIDIG ; LONG - 

 WINGED GOATSUCKER 



Length — 9 to lo inches. About the same length as the robin, but 

 apparently much longer because of its very wide wing-spread. 



Male and Female — Mottled blackish brown and rufous above, with 

 a multitude of cream-yellow spots and dashes. Lighter 

 below, with waving bars of brown on breast and under- 

 neath. White mark on throat, like an imperfect horseshoe; 

 also a band of white across tail of male bird. These latter 

 markings are wanting in female. Heavy wings, which are 

 partly mottled, are brown on shoulders and tips, and longer 

 than tail. They have large white spots, conspicuous in 

 flight, one of their distinguishing marks from the whippoor- 

 will. Head large and depressed, with large eyes and ear- 

 openings. Very small bill. 



Ra7ige — From Mexico to arctic islands. 



Migrations — May. October. Common summer resident. 



The nighthawk's misleading name could not well imply 

 more that the bird is not : it is not nocturnal in its habits, neither 

 is it a hawk, for if it were, no account of it would be given in 

 this book, which distinctly excludes birds of prey. Stories of its 

 chicken-stealing prove to be ignorant rather than malicious slan- 

 ders. Any one disliking the name, however, surely cannot com- 

 plain of a limited choice of other names by which, in different 

 sections of the country, it is quite as commonly known. 



Too often it is mistaken for the whippoorwill. The night- 

 hawk does not have the weird and woful cry of that more dismal 

 bird, but gives instead a harsh, whistling note while on the wing, 

 followed by a vibrating, booming, whirring sound that Nuttall 

 likens' to "the rapid turning of a spinning wheel, or a strong 

 blowing into the bung-hole of an empty hogshead." This pecu- 

 liar sound is responsible for the name nightjar, frequently given 

 to this curious bird. It is said to be made as the bird drops sud- 

 denly through the air, creating a sort of stringed instrument of its 

 outstretched wings and tail. When these wings are spread, their 

 large white spots running through the feathers to the under side 



138 



