for birds that kill insects. And first among 

 these are the night-hawks. They seem to have 

 been designed for this sole purpose. Their end 

 is to kill insects. They are more like machines 

 than any other birds I know. The enormous 

 mouth feeds an enormous stomach, and this, like 

 a fire-box, makes the power that works the 

 enormous wings. From a single maw have been 

 taken eighteen hundred winged ants, to say 

 nothing of the smaller fry that could not be 

 identified and counted. 



But if he never caught an ant, never one of 

 the fifth-story mosquitos that live and bite till 

 Christmas, how greatly still my sky would need 

 him ! His flight is song enough. His cry and 

 eery thunder are the very voice of the summer 

 twilight to me. And as I watch him coasting 

 in the evening dusk, that twilight often falls- 

 over the roofs, as it used to fall for me over the 

 fields and the quiet hollow woods. 



There is always an English sparrow on my 

 roof— which does not particularly commend the 

 roof to bird-lovers, I know. I often wish the 

 sparrow an entirely different bird, but I never 

 wish him entirely away from the roof. "When 

 [10] 



