1 66 NIGHT HA WK. 



again mounts by alternate quick and leisurely motions of the 

 wings, playing about as he ascends, uttering his usual hoarse 

 squeak, till, in a few minutes, he again dives with the same 

 impetuosity and violent sound as before. Some are of opinion 

 that this is done to intimidate man or beast from approaching 

 his nest, and he is particularly observed to repeat these divings 

 most frequently around those who come near the spot, sweep- 

 ing down past them, sometimes so near and so suddenly as 

 to startle and alarm them. The same individual is, however, 

 often seen performing these manoeuvres over the river, the 

 hill, the meadow, and the marsh, in the space of a quarter of an 

 hour, and also towards the fall, when he has no nest. This 

 singular habit belongs peculiarly to the male. The female 

 has, indeed, the common hoarse note, and much the same 

 mode of flight ; but never precipitates herself in the manner 

 of the male. During the time she is sitting, she will suffer 

 you to approach within a foot or two before she attempts to 

 stir, and, when she does, it is in such a fluttering, tumbling 

 manner, and with such appearance of a lame and wounded 

 bird, as nine times in ten to deceive the person, and induce 

 him to pursue her. This " pious fraud," as the poet Thomson 

 calls it, is kept up until the person is sufficiently removed 

 from the nest, when she immediately mounts and disappears. 

 When the young are first hatched, it is difficult to distinguish 

 them from the surface of the ground, their down being of a 

 pale brownish colour, and they are altogether destitute of the 

 common shape of birds, sitting so fixed and so squat as to be 

 easily mistaken for a slight prominent mouldiness lying on the 

 ground. I cannot say whether they have two broods in the 

 season ; I rather conjecture that they have generally but one. 

 The night hawk is a bird of strong and vigorous flight, 

 and of large volume of wing. It often visits the city, darting 

 and squeaking over the streets at a great height, diving perpen- 

 dicularly with the same hollow sound as before described. I 

 have also seen them sitting on chimney tops in some of the most 

 busy parts of the city, occasionally uttering their common note. 



