The Pacific Nighthawk 



girl ; now he races to and fro in a frenzy; and now he glides along smoothly 

 with the ease and stateliness of a gondola. He is a more dignified bat, 

 graceful at times, but always a bit uncanny. But the "bull-bat" knows 

 exactly what he is about, and he is playing the air game for the maximum 

 of gastronomic profit. 



Taken at Big Bear Lake 



Photo by Pierce 



EGGS OF PACIFIC NIGHTHAWK, IN SITU 



With a mouth like the opening of a butterfly net, and a stomach 

 to match, this winged bug-hunter is one of the world's most successful 

 entomologists. Everything with a pinched-in waist is grist to his mill — 

 chinch bugs, squash-bugs, June-bugs, any old bugs. One Nighthawk 

 stomach under examination gave up seventeen species of beetles at one 

 time. Another, nineteen entire grasshoppers. Another, parts of thirty- 

 eight. But if the bull-bat has a specialty, it is flying ants. Dr. Grinnell 

 took a stomach which held 43 of our large-winged white ants (and of these 

 some were still alive fifteen hours after capture) ; while Professor Beal took 

 one individual whose crop was gorged with 1800 of a small variety. 



Nighthawks are not so strictly nocturnal as are the Poor-wills, for 

 they put a quite liberal construction on the word "twilight," and are 



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