152 THE NIGHT-HAWK. 



feels assured that you have lost sight of her eggs or young, after which she 

 flies off, and does not return until you have withdrawn, but she will suffer 

 you to approach her, if unseen, until within a foot or two of her eggs. 

 During incubation, the male and female sit alternately. After the young are 

 tolerably grown, and require less warmth from their parents, the latter are 

 generally found in their immediate neighbourhood, quietly squatted on some 

 fence, rail, or tree, where they remain so very silent and motionless that it 

 is no easy matter to discover them. 



When wounded they scramble off very awkwardly, and if taken in the 

 hand immediately open their mouth to its full extent repeatedly, as if the 

 mandibles moved on hinges worked by a spring. They also strike with 

 their wings in the manner of pigeons, but without any effect. 



The food of the Night-Hawk consists entirely of insects, especially those 

 of the Coleopterous order, although they also seize on moths and caterpillars, 

 and are very expert at catching crickets and grasshoppers, with which they 

 sometimes gorge themselves, as they fly low over the ground with great 

 rapidity. They now and then drink whilst flying closely over the water, 

 in the manner of swallows. 



None of these birds remain during the winter in any portion of the United 

 States. The Chuck-will's-widow alone have I heard, and found far up the 

 St. John's River, in East Florida, in January. Frequently during autumn, 

 at New Orleans, I have known some of these birds to remain searching for 

 food over the meadows and river until the rainy season had begun, and then 

 is the time at which the sportsmen shoot many of them down; but the very 

 next day, if the weather was still drizzly, scarcely one could be seen there. 

 When returning from the northern districts at a late period of the year, they 

 pass close over the woods, and with so much rapidity, that you can obtain 

 only a single glimpse of them. 



While at Indian Key, on the coast of Florida, I saw a pair of these birds 

 killed by lightning, while they were on wing, during a tremendous thunder- 

 storm. They fell on the sea, and after picking them up I examined them 

 carefully, but failed to discover the least appearance of injury on the feathers 

 or in the internal parts. 



Night-Hawk, Caprimulgus Americanus, Wils. Amer. Om., vol. v. p. 65. 



Caprimulgus Virginianus, Bonap. Syn., p. 62. 



Caprimulgus (Chordeiles) Virginianus, Swains, and Rich. F. Bor. Amer., vol. i. p. 62. 



Night-Hawk, Caprimulgus Americanus, Nutt. Man., vol. i. p. 619. 



Night-Hawk, Caprimulgus Virginianus, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. ii. p. 273; vol. V. p. 406. 



Upper parts brownish-black, mottled with white and pale reddish-brown; 

 a conspicuous white bar extending across the inner web of the first, and the 



