chuck-will’s-widow. 5 
Chickasaws to the notes of this bird, 
tlin"^ll occasions they always assumed a grave and 
1 ^ 8 httul aspect; but it appeared to me that they 
, ® “o distinction between the two species ; so that 
atever superstitious notions they may cutertain of 
probably applied to both. 
Ihis singuliir genus of bird.s, formed to subsist on the 
• uperabundance of nocturual insects, are exactly and 
^rpnsinirly fitted for their peculiar mode of life. 
eir llight is low, to accommodate itself to their prey; 
1 eut, that they may be the better concealed, and sweep 
upon It unawares ; their sight, most acute in the dusk. 
When such insects are .abroad ; their evolutions, .some- 
thing like those of the bat, (piick and sudden; their 
mouths, capable of prodigious expansion, so seize with 
more certainty, and furnished with long branching 
hairs, or bristles, serving as palisadoes to secure what 
comes between them. Reposing so much during the 
heats of day, they are much infested with vermin, parti- 
culaidy about the head, and are provided ivitli a comb 
on the inner edge of the middle claw, with which they 
aie oiten employed in rlddinw" themselves of these pests, 
when in a state of captivity. Having no weapons 
11 ‘* ®,‘!^'®> o^cept their wings, their chief security is in 
of night, and in their colour and close 
ea s by day ; the former so much resembling that of 
ueau leaves, ot various lines, as not to be readily distin- 
guished from them even when close at hand. 
- le chuck-will’s-widow lays its eggs, two in number, 
on the ground, generally, and, I hclicvc, always in the 
00 s ; it makes no nest ; the eggs are of a dull olive 
aa tn""’ with darker specks, arc about as large 
e^™i “ pigeon, and exactly oval. Early in Sep- 
ernber they retire from the United States. 
is twelve iuclies long, and twenty-six in 
teiit ; bill, yellowish, tipt with black ; the sides of the 
outu are armed witli numerous long bristles, strong, 
pering and furnished with tiuer hairs branching from 
cn ; cheeks and chin, rust colour, specked with black ; 
D or the eye extends a line of small whitish spots ; head 
