NIGHT HA WK. T 6 3 



Florida to Hudson's Bay, yet its history has heen involved in 

 considerable obscurity by foreign writers, as well as by some 

 of our own country. Of this I shall endeavour to divest it iu 

 the present account. 



the ground, and still retaining the wings like some gulls or terns, or a 

 swallow dipping in the water, until they are again required to give the 

 stroke upwards ; all the while the tail is much expanded, and is a con- 

 spicuous object in the male, from the white spots on the outer feathers. 

 When in woods, or hawking near trees, the flight is made in glides among 

 the branches, or it flutters close to the summits, and seizes the various 

 Phaloenai which play around them. I once observed three or four of 

 these birds hawking in this manner, on the confines of a spruce fir plan- 

 tation, and, after various evolutions, they balanced themselves for a few 

 seconds on the very summits of the leading shoots. This was frequently 

 repeated while I looked on. During the whole of their flight, a short 

 snap of the bill is heard, and a sort of click, click, with the distinct sound 

 of the monosyllable whip, or, to convey the idea better, the sound of a 

 whip suddenly lashed without cracking. The female, when disturbed 

 from her nest, flits or skims along the surface for a short distance ; but 

 I have never seen the young or eggs removed in the manner related of 

 the American species, even after frequent annoyance. When the young 

 are approached at night, before they are perfectly fledged, the old birds 

 fly in circles round, approach very near, uttering incessantly their click- 

 ing cry, and make frequent dashes at the intruder, like a lapwing. 



Among the night hawks, taking the form as understood to rank under 

 Caprimulgus of Linnaeus, we have a close resemblance of general form 

 and characters, though there are one or two modifications which fully 

 entitle the species to separation, and which work beautifully in the system 

 of affinities or gradual development of form.* From these circumstances, 

 Mr Swainson has formed a new genus for pur present species. 



In colour, the whole of Caprimulgus is very closely allied ; " drest, 

 but with Nature's tenderest pencil touched," in various shades of brown, 

 white, and russet ; the delicate blending of the markings produce an 



* In some the mouth is furnished with very strong bristles, and in others it is 

 entirely destitute of them, as may be seen in the species of North America. 

 Again, the tail is square, round, or forked, sometimes to an extraordinary extent, 

 as in the C. psalurus of Azara, and in C. acutus the shafts of the feathers project 

 beyond the webs, and remind us of the genus Chcetura. In some the tarsus is 

 extremely short and weak, and covered with plumes to the very toes, in others 

 long and naked. The wings are rounded or sharp-pointed ; and in the Sierra 

 goatsucker we have the shaft of one of the secondaries running out to the length 

 of twenty inches, with the web much expanded at the extremity, and presenting 

 no doubt during flight a most unique appearance. — Ed. 



