SUPPLEMENT TO BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY 121 



185 [417] Antrostomus vociferus vociferus (Wils.). 



Whip-poor-will. 

 Common summer resident. April 27 to October 3. 

 Eggs: May 29 to June 12. 



The April 27 record is of a bird in Swampscott, in 1906, noted by Mr. W. A. 

 Jeffries. Mr. DamselP has a record for April 28, 1902, and Mr. R. Eustis recorded 

 one at Middleton on April 28, 1906. The late date of October 3 in Amesbury is 

 recorded by DamselP in 1891. 



The largest number of whip-poor-will repetitions recorded in the original 

 Memoir was 296. On May 10, 1905, in the Topsfield Marshes of the Ipswich 

 River I listened to a bird that repeated this song 664 times, then paused for a few 

 seconds and began again. 



186 [420] Chordeiles virginianus virginianus (Gmel.). 



NiGHTHAWK. 



Not uncommon summer resident, common transient visitor. May 15 to 

 October 6. 



Mr. Damsell^ records "flocks" of Nighthawks migrating on May 30, 1890. 

 On August 29, 1917, at Ipswich just before a thunderstorm I saw twenty Night- 

 hawks flying south in a straggling flock high over the marshes. The largest 

 migrating flock of these birds I ever saw was in the valley of the Connecticut 

 River at Cornish, N. H., on August 30, 1914. Here, between five and six in 

 the afternoon, the air was filled with these birds in beautiful noiseless flight. 

 They looked like a flock of gigantic swallows winnowing the air. Their feet 

 were apparently bestowed beneath their tails. There must have been many 

 hundreds if not thousands of these birds. 



The loud rasping call-note of this bird, so familiar in cities where the birds 

 breed on flat roofs, is commonly written down as peent or speke, but a careful 

 study within a reasonably near distance shows that the call is double and I have 

 written it down bee'-ak or spee'-yah. Richard King in his " Narrative of a 

 Journey to the shores of the Arctic Ocean in 1833, 1834 and 1835 " (vol. 2, p. 215) 

 says that this bird utters "a sharp sound resembling the dissyllable peesqmw. 



1 Allen, G. M. Auk, vol. 30, p. 26, 1913. 



