CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 327 



or even on land that has recently been burnt over. {^Rev. C.J. 

 Young.) All the nests taken at Ottawa, Ont., were on the ground 

 or on the gravel on the flat roofs of houses in the city. Eggs, two, 

 of a pale olive buff, thickly mottled and daubed with varied tints of 

 darker gray slate or even blackish. {^G. R.White) On August ist, 

 1883, while in the eastern sand hills with Miller Christy, we found 

 the two young of a nighthawk sitting on the bare ground in the 

 open. They seemed about three days old. On the tips of their 

 beaks were still the hard white with which they are furnished to 

 aid them in chipping the shell. The old shells were lying around 

 the nest, as is the case with the Pooccstes, and but for these I 

 should have passed by the young ones, as they had squatted close 

 to the ground and shut their eyes, for the blackness and brilliancy 

 of these would almost certainly have betrayed them. I gently 

 touched one of them, whereupon it crouched down more closely 

 to the ground ; but its companion, rising up, hissed with open 

 beak and snapped savagely at my fingers. On being further 

 teased they ran off, exactly in the manner of young ducks, with 

 outstretched wings and with neck and body at an angle of 45 

 degrees. After running a few feet they stopped, squatted as 

 before, and closed their eyes. This they repeated several times, 

 but at best they only made little progress, and each time on being 

 overtaken the bold one was always ready to fight. This proved 

 to be a male ; the sex of the other was not ascertained, but pro- 

 bably it was a female. At this age the middle claw is not pecti- 

 nated. {Thompson-Seton.) The eggs of the n\ghths.v{k {Chordeiles 

 virginianus) were several times found on the bare ground among 

 the sand hills, on the north side of the Souris, near Plum Creek, 

 with no approach to a nest for the helpless young. The parent 

 birds endeavoured to draw us away from their eggs, fluttered as 

 if wounded a short distance from them, and uttering cries of dis- 

 tress. {Hind) 



MUSEUM SPECIMENS. 



Two ; both taken at Ottawa, Ont., by Mr. G. R. White. 



One set of two eggs taken from roof of house, 374 Gilmour st., 

 Ottawa, Ont., June 12th, 1895, by M"". R. H. H. Hunter. Another 

 set of two taken on bare rock in the township of Metheun, 

 Peterboro' Co., Ont., by Mr. J. Keele, June 3rd, 1899. 



