The Texas Nighthawk 



Authorities. — Baird (Chordeiles texsnsis), Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. ix., 1858, 

 p. 154 (Colo. R., Calif.) ; Bend ire. Life Hist. N. Am. Birds, vol. ii.. 1895, p. 172, pi. iii., 

 figs. 7-10 (eggs); Taylor, Condor, vol. xiv., 1912, p. 222, fig. (Winslow, Glenn Co.; 

 breeding); Oberholser, U. S. Nat. Mus., Bull. no. 86, 1914, p. 103 (monogr.); Swarth, 

 Birds of the Papago Saguaro Nat. Mon., 1920, p. 38 (courting "song," habits, etc.). 



TO 



Sj[ '- "'..'•-v- 





Taken in San Fernando Valley 



Pholo by Ike Author 



EGGS OF TEXAS NIGHTHAWK. IN SITU 



THE NATURE loving pilgrim camping for a night in some desert 

 wash will have occasion to wonder at a strange burring croak which wells 

 up out of the ground, apparently from nowhere in particular. It is a 

 weird sound, low, monotonous, and impersonal, — drowsy, too, if one can 

 ignore the challenge of its mystery. It is the voice of a giant frog grown 

 weary in a waterless land. Or it is the voice of the desert itself murmur- 

 ing its gratitude before the cooling touch of nightfall. Pan wakes at this 

 hour in yonder mountain glade and summons all his satyrs to revel, but 

 here in the desert silence reigns, silence and the sole mystery of sound. 

 The traveler sleeps, and rousing midway of his dreams, he seems to hear 

 two voices, two deserts answering from nowhere. But each utters the 

 self-same silence, bidding him resign again to slumber. 



1065 



