196 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 
contents of 237 stomachs examined through the four seasons showed 
that 99% of the food was vegetable and over 64% was noxious weed 
seeds. 
Some individual records are of interest. In one stomach was 
found 7,500 seeds of the wood-sorrel (Oxalis stricta), in another 6,400 
seeds of barn grass or fox-tail (Chactocloa) and a third had a com- 
bination of 9,200 seeds of troublesome weeds. A total of 23,000 pros- 
pective weeds used as a single meal for three birds is a wonderful 
fact, yet these most valuable farmer’s friends are considered game 
birds on which there is an open season of two months. 
The question is one of dollars and cents. The dove is far toa 
valuable to be classed as a game bird. Its value consists in its weed 
seed destruction, and not in the few ounces of flesh or the trifling 
' sport it may furnish if shot as game. 
NIGHT HAWKS 
Chordeiles virginianus virginianus (Gmel.) 
Chordeiles virginianus henryi (Cass.) 
Chordeiles virginianus hesperis. 
By R. Bruce HORSFALL. 
There are three species of virginianus in Oregon, resembling each 
other so closely in habits and appearances that they can not be dis- 
tinguished except in the hand. 
Chordeiles virginianus is found east of the Cascades, while C. v. 
henryi ranges over the Cascades and to the Pacific. C. v. hesperis, 
the Pacific Night Hawk, from the Coast to the mountains. The three 
forms overlap in their breeding habitat and have not been clearly 
separated. 
Completely blotched and mottled with blacks, browns, white and 
gray, the birds are well adapted to their daylight sleep upon the 
ground or as a knot lengthwise upon some horizontal branch or stump. 
Resembling the Whip-Poor-Wills, who fly only after dark, the Night 
Hawks fly about in the late afternoon and until full daylight in the 
morning. One of their favorite pastimes is to mount by easy stages 
to a tremendous height, then half fold the wings and shoot earth- 
ward with fearful speed and a hollow booming sound. 
A white patch in the middle of each wing is a strong recognition 
mark. The feet are small and useless, but how wonderfully at home 
Night Hawks are in the sky. However, they are not Hawks at all, 
but a species peculiar to themselves, with a fly-trap for a mouth (a 
tiny bill at the apex of a cleft which reaches from ear to ear of a very 
broad head). They go zig-zagging about with great speed catching 
every insect that flies. 
There are many insect-catching birds for the day, but the night 
also has its myriads of buzzing wings to be caught, and the Night 
Hawks are their greatest enemy. Their stomachs are huge for such 
small birds, equaling in capacity the stomachs of pigeons whose bodies 
are twice as large. As many as 1800 flying ants have been found in 
one stomach, 38 entire grasshoppers in another, 500 mosquitoes in the 
stomach of a third, yet we are far from beginning to realize the very 
important factor insectivorous birds are in checking the ravages of 
insects injurious to vegetation and man. 
