The Texas Nighthawk 



Although so careless of her eggs at first, the bird's attachment 

 grows as incubation advances. So devoted does she become that she 

 will suffer the intruder at three or four feet, and has even been taken by 

 the hand. The assertion that the Texas Nighthawk does not employ 

 the decoy ruse is incorrect, for when the chicks are hatched the mother 

 will nutter away enticingly, like any other ground-nesting species. The 

 young birds are much lighter in coloration than the parent, being assimi- 

 lated, apparently, to the stronger lighting which prevails in summer. 

 A baby Texas, squatting motionless in a naked stretch of alkali, is the 

 acme of invisibility, for its warm silvery tints exhibit the very sheen of 

 the impregnated earth. Two crops of babies are due in one season, and 

 nesting ranges from the middle of April to the first week in August. 



Gberholser, in his Monograph of the genus Chordeiles, gives April 

 as the month of arrival for this species "in the southwestern United 

 States," with an exceptional record of March 21st, and others in the 

 middle of May. Our records would indicate that arrival during the last 

 week in March is at least not exceptional. Dr. Grinnell saw one individ- 

 ual at Chemehuevis on March 9th, 1910, but did not observe another in 

 the Lower Colorado Valley until March 27th. I saw a single bird at 

 Long Beach on the evening of January 30th, 191 1, and Mr. C. B. Linton, 

 who was with me, agreed that it could be none other than this species. 

 The return movement sets in in September, but October records are 

 not rare. 



The name acutipennis is, of course, most unfortunate, for the wing 

 of C. a. texensis is not as "acute" as that of C. m. hesperis. While the 

 relative length of the outer primaries is variable in both species, the 

 outermost is longer than the next ones (hence the wing more pointed) in 

 85 percent of the cases in C. minor; while it is shorter (with the tip of the 

 wing definitely rounded) in 75 per cent of the examples of C. acutipennis. 

 Endless confusion, therefore, exists in all sight records, especially along 

 the northern limits of this bird's range. Careful discrimination will 

 probably show that texensis is gradually extending its range northward, 

 and it may be expected to appear in time as far north as Red Bluff or 

 Redding. 



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