CHUCK- WILL’S- WIDOW. 
153 
female, perched lengthwise on a branch, appears coy and silent, whilst the 
male flies around her, alights in front of her, and with drooping wings and 
expanded tail advances quickly, singing with great impetuosity. They are 
soon seen to leave the branch together and gambol through the air. A few 
days after this, the female, having made choice of a place in one of the most 
retired parts of some thicket, deposits two eggs, which I think, although I 
cannot be certain, are all that she lays for the season. This bird forms no 
nest. A little space is carelessly scratched amongst the dead leaves, and 
in it the eggs, which are elliptical, dull olive, and speckled with brown, 
are dropped. These are not found without great difficulty, unless when 
by accident a person passes within a few feet of the bird whilst sitting, and 
it chances to fly off. Should you touch or handle these dear fruits of 
happy love, and, returning to the place, search for them again, you would 
search in vain ; for the bird perceives at once that they have been meddled 
with, and both parents remove them to some other part of the woods, 
where chance only could enable you to find them again. In the same man- 
ner, they also remove the young when very small. 
This singular occurrence has as much occupied my thoughts as the equally 
singular manner in which the Cow Bunting deposits her eggs, which she 
does, like- the Common Cuckoo of Europe, one by one, in the nests of other 
birds, of different species from her own. I have spent much time in trying 
to ascertain in what manner the Chuck-will’s-widow removes her eggs or 
young, particularly as I found, by the assistance of an excellent dog, that 
neither the eggs nor the young were to be met with within at least a hundred 
yards from the spot where they at first lay. The negroes, some of whom 
pay a good deal of attention to the habits of birds and quadrupeds, assured 
me that these birds push the eggs or young with their bill along the ground. 
Some farmers, without troubling themselves much about the matter, 
imagine the transportation to be performed under the wings of the old 
bird. The removal is, however, performed thus : 
When the Chuck-will’s-widow, either male or female, (for each sits alter- 
nately,) has discovered that the eggs have been touched, it ruffles its feathers 
and appears extremely dejected for a minute or two, after which it emits a 
low murmuring cry, scarcely audible at a distance of more than eighteen or 
twenty yards. At this time the other parent reaches the spot, flying so low 
over the ground that I thought its little feet must have touched it, as it 
skimmed along, and after a few low notes and some gesticulations, all indi- 
cative of great distress, takes an egg in its large mouth, the other bird doing 
the same, when they would fly off together, skimming clO'sely over the 
ground, until they disappeared among the branches and trees. But to what 
distance they remove their eggs, I have never been able to ascertain ; nor 
Yol. I. 24 
