40 
444 
NIGHT-HAWK. 
diately preceding a north-east storm. At this time also they 
abound in the extensive meadows on the Schuylkill and Dela- 
ware, where I have counted fifteen skimming over a single field 
in an evening. On shooting some of these, on the fourteenth of 
August, their stomachs were almost exclusively filled with crick- 
ets. From one of them I took nearly a common snuff-box full 
of these insects, all seemingly fresh swallowed. 
By the middle or twentieth of September very few of these 
birds are to be seen in Pennsylvania; how far south they go, 
or at what particular time they pass the southern boundaries of 
the United States I am unable to say. None of them winter in 
G-eorgia. 
The ridiculous name Goatsucker, which was first bestowed 
on the European species from a foolish notion that it sucked the 
teats of the goats, because probably it inhabited the solitary 
heights where they fed, which nickname has been since applied 
to the whole genus, I have thought proper to omit. There is 
something worse than absurd in continuing to brand a whole 
family of birds with a knavish name, after they are universally 
known to be innocent of the charge. It is not only unjust, but 
tends to encourage the belief in an idle fable that is totally des- 
titute of all foundation. 
The Night-hawk is nine inches and a half in length, and 
twenty-three inches in extent; the upper parts are of a very 
deep blackish brown, unmixed on the primaries, but thickly 
sprinkled or powdered on the back scapulars and head with in- 
numerable minute spots and streaks of a pale cream colour, in- 
terspersed with specks of reddish; the scapulars are barred with 
the same, also the tail coverts and tail, the inner edges of which 
are barred with white and deep brownish black for an inch and 
a half from the tip, where they are crossed broadly with a band 
of white, the two middle ones excepted, which are plain deep 
brown, barred and sprinkled with light clay; a spot of pure 
white extends over the five first primaries, the outer edge of 
the exterior feather excepted, and about the middle of the wing; 
a triangular spot of white also marks the throat, bending up cm 
