BIRDS OF THE AIR. 343 
the Nighthawk, one of the most friendly and useful of birds. 
Its supposedly ill-omened cry is sometimes heard from the 
ridgepole or from the orchard trees. Mr. James Buckham, 
in an interesting article in “Zion’s Herald,” calls attention 
to the fact that the Whip-poor-will is often a doorstep singer. 
It sometimes sits on the broad stone step before the farm- 
house door and calls whipowill repeatedly. When close at 
hand a soft cluck may be heard after each phrase. The bird 
may be distinguished from the Nighthawk by its shorter 
wings and long, rounded tail. 
The Whip-poor-will is an animated insect trap. Its 
enormous mouth is surrounded by long bristles which form 
a wide fringe about the yawning cavity, and the bird flies 
rather low among the trees and over the undergrowth, 
snapping up nocturnal insects in flight. It is perhaps the 
greatest enemy of night moths, but is quite as destructive 
to May beetles and other leaf-eating beetles. Hairy cater- 
pillars, like the tent and tussock caterpillars, as well as span- 
worms, grasshoppers, and ants, are sometimes eaten in large 
numbers. 
SWALLOWS. 
This family of daylight air-coursers has four common 
representatives in this Commonwealth. The Purple Martin, 
common until within a few years, is now generally rare 
except in migration. The illustration of the Swallow roost, 
although taken from a sketch made on the Musketaquid, was 
nevertheless suggested by Ernest Thompson Seton’s beauti- 
ful drawing, now reproduced in Chapman’s “ Bird-Life.” It 
shows the four common Swallows, and exhibits their habit 
of roosting in reeds. Swallows collect in flocks throughout 
the season of migration. In July, as soon as the young are 
reared, they begin to flock at night near bodies of water, and 
prepare to migrate. Swallows gather in winter in the great 
swamps of southern Florida in enormous flights, which, after 
uniting in one, discharge into the reeds at dusk. The de- 
scent of such a multitude resembles in appearance a great 
waterspout topped by an enormous black cloud. In the 
morning they, scatter out over the country to feed. 
