NIGHTHAWK 205 



not to avoid birds of prey but, apparently, to secure 

 their own insect prey. There is a particular part of the 

 railroad just below the shanty where they may be heard 

 and seen in greatest numbers. But often you must look 

 a long while before you can detect the mote in the sky 

 from which the note proceeds. 



June 1, 1853. Walking up this side-hill, I disturbed 

 a nighthawk eight or ten feet from me, which went, 

 half fluttering, half hopping, the mottled creature, like 

 a winged toad, as Nuttall says the French of Louisi- 

 ana (?) call them, 1 down the hill as far as I could see. 

 Without moving, I looked about and saw its two eggs 

 on the bare ground, on a slight shelf of the hill, on the 

 dead pine-needles and sand, without any cavity or nest 

 whatever, very obvious when once you had detected 

 them, but not easily detected from their color, a coarse 

 gray formed of white spotted with a bluish or slaty 

 brown or umber, — a stone — granite — color, like the 

 places it selects. I advanced and put my hand on 

 them, and while I stooped, seeing a shadow on the 

 ground, looked up and saw the bird, which had flut- 

 tered down the hill so blind and helpless, circling low 

 and swiftly past over my head, showing the white spot 

 on each wing in true nighthawk fashion. When I had 

 gone a dozen rods, it appeared again higher in the air, 

 with its peculiar flitting, limping kind of flight, all 

 the while noiseless, and suddenly descending, it dashed 

 at me within ten feet of my head, like an imp of dark- 

 ness, then swept away high over the pond, dashing 



1 [Nuttall speaks of "the metaphorical French name of 'Crapaud 

 volans,' or Flying Toad."] 



