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



should be noted to further distinguish the nighthawlt from the 

 whippoorwill, which has none, but which it otherwise closely 

 resembles. This booming sound, coming from such a height that 

 the bird itself is often unseen, was said by the Indians to be made 

 by the shad spirits to warn the scholes of shad about to ascend 

 the rivers to spawn in the spring, of their impending fate. 



The flight of the nighthawk is free and graceful in the ex- 

 treme. Soaring through space without any apparent motion of 

 its wings, suddenly it darts with amazing swiftness like an erratic 

 bat after the fly, mosquito, beetle, or moth that falls within the 

 range of its truly hawk-hke eye. 



Usually the nighthawks hunt in little companies in the most 

 sociable fashion. Late in the summer they seem to be almost 

 gregarious. They fly in the early morning or late afternoon with 

 beak wide open, hawking for insects, but except when the moon 

 is full they are not known to go a-hunting after sunset. During 

 the heat of the day and at night they rest on limbs of trees, fence- 

 rails, stone walls, lichen-covered rocks or old logs — wherever 

 Nature has provided suitable mimicry of their plumage to help 

 conceal them. 



With this object in mind, they quite as often choose a hollow 

 surface of rock in some waste pasture or the open ground on 

 which to deposit the two speckled-gray eggs that sixteen days 

 later will give birth to their family. But in August, when family 

 cares have ended for the season, it is curious to find this bird of 

 the thickly wooded country readily adapting itself to city life, 

 resting on Mansard roofs, darting into the streets from the house- 

 tops, and wheeling about the electric lights, making a hearty sup- 

 per of the little, winged insects they attract. 



Black-billed Cuckoo 



(Coccy^us erythrophthalmus) Cuckoo family 



Called also: RAIN CROW 



Length — 1 1 to 12 inches. About one-fifth larger than the robin. 



Male — Grayish brown above, with bronze tint in feathers. Un- 

 derneath grayish white ; bill, which is long as head and 

 black, arched and acute. Skin about the eye bright red. 

 Tail long, and with spots on tips of quills that are small and 

 inconspicuous. 



139 . 



