236 
THE WILSON BULLETIN— December, 1922 
fects the stream flow at different seasons to such an extent that the sup- 
ply of fish may be materially decreased. 
During forest fires, game and other wild animals may be surrounded 
by flames and killed outright. If they succeed in escaping to adjoining 
areas they come into direct competition for food and shelter with the 
game already on that area and the chances of survival are lessened 
for all. U. S. Biol. Surv. 
NIGHTHAWK MIGRATION NOTES 
A decade ago the Nighthawk was a common summer resident in 
this part of Iowa. It returned in numbers each spring and made the 
Iowa environment its summer home; when it remigrated southward in 
the fall its ranks had been enlarged by many individuals — a result of 
safe nesting grounds to be found here. Without the sight of this grace- 
ful, long-winged bird, widely circling the sky in its erratic flight ma- 
neuvers, and producing the well-known sound so aptly described as tear- 
ing a piece of cloth, the calm summer evenings would have lacked a cer- 
tain amount of charm that the regular evening nature chorus did not 
contain, however varied and interesting the latter might be. For years 
the Nighthawk added an important bit to the associations of city and 
rural life. 
Now it is changed. The Nighthawk is no longer a summer neighbor 
and is surely missed. While it is true that a few Nighthawks are still 
summer residents here, the cases are isolated, and the bird can be classed 
only as a rare summer resident. The reason for this evidently cannot 
be laid to decrease in numbers of the species, but to a change in nesting 
grounds, which has perhaps been forced by the growing practice of the 
over-industrious farmer of turning every available acre of pasture or 
other semi-waste land into tillable soil to increase his own profits. Their 
natural nesting grounds become scarcer every year. 
While it is apparent that the Nighthawk has appreciably decreased 
in many parts of the United States, it is not probable that it will ever 
become extinct, or perhaps any less abundant than at the present time. 
It seems to be very erratic in migration and choice of nesting grounds, 
sometimes being unusually abundant at a certain place for a time, then 
suddenly disappearing almost entirely for several seasons, as seems to be 
the case in my region. 
Being especially interested in this subject, I have kept yearly records 
since 1919, and these show that the bird does not stop here to breed, prob- 
ably going farther north, because it passes through in numbers in the fall 
migration and is not present in the summer. These records, given in 
part below, pertain to Buchanan County, with the exception of the 1919 
Cedar Rapids record. 
My 1919 list contains but three records of the bird. The first date 
is May 25, when a lone bird was noted at Cedar Rapids, Iowa; the others 
were August 23, two birds, and August 28, a flock of 25 (approximately). 
In 1920 the Nighthawk was noted only three times, as follows: May 
10, 1; August 30, several; September 12, 1. 
The next season, 1921, the Nighthawk made a much larger represen- 
