1 62 NIGHT HAWK. 



small hawks, and from its habit of flying chiefly in the 

 evening. Though it is a bird universally known in the 

 United States, and inhabits North America in summer from 



rictus armed, in some instances, with very powerful bristles. Their 

 organs of sight are also fitted only for a more gloomy light. They 

 appear only at twilight, reposing during the day among furze or brake, 

 or sitting, in their own peculiar manner, on a branch ; but if inactive 

 amidst the clearer light, they are all energy and action when their own 

 day has arrived. To these last will belong the common night hawk of 

 Europe ; and a detail, in comparison of its manners with those of our 

 author, may assist in giving some idea of the truly nocturnal species, 

 which are similar, so far as variation of country and circumstances will 

 allow. They are thus, in a few lines, accurately described by a poet 

 whom Wilson would have admired : — 



Hark ! from yon quivering branch your direst foe, 

 Insects of night, its whirring note prolongs, 

 Loud as the sound of busy maiden's wheel : 

 Then with expanded beak, and throat enlarged 

 Even to its utmost stretch, its 'custoni'd food 

 Pursues voracious. 



It frequents extensive moors and commons, perhaps more abundantly 

 if they are either interspersed or bordered with brush or wood. At the 

 commencement of twilight, when they are first roused from their daily 

 slumber, they perch on some bare elevation of the ground, an old wall 

 or fence, or heap of stones, in a moss country on a peat stack, and com- 

 mence their monotonous drum or whirr, closely resembling the dull 

 sound produced by a spinning-wheel ; and possessing the same variation 

 of apparent distance in the sound, a modification of ventriloquism, which 

 is perceived in the croak of the land rail, or the cry of the coot and 

 water rail, or croaking of frogs ; at one time it is so near as to cause an 

 alarm that you will disturb the utterer ; at another as if the bird had 

 removed to the extreme limit of the listener's organs, while it remains 

 unseen at a distance of perhaps not more than forty or fifty yards. At 

 the commencement, this drumming sound seems to be continued for 

 about ten or fifteen minutes, and occasionally during the night in the inter- 

 vals of relaxation ; it is only, however, when perched that it is uttered, 

 and never for so great a length of time as at the first. Their flight is 

 never high, and is performed without any regularity; sometimes straight 

 forward and in gliding circles, with a slow, steady clap of the wings, in 

 the middle of which they will abruptly start into the air for thirty or 

 forty feet, resuming their former line by a gradual fall ; at other times 

 it will be performed in sudden jerks upwards, in the fall keeping the 

 wings steady and closed over the back, skimming in the intervals near 



