162 
THE night-hawk:. 
feels assured that you have lost sight of her eggs or young, after which she 
flies off, and does not return until you have withdrawn, but she will suffer 
you to approach her, if unseen, until within a foot or two of her eggs. 
During incubation, the male and female sit alternately. After the young are 
tolerably grown, and require less warmth from their parents, the latter are 
generally found in their immediate neighbourhood, quietly squatted on some 
fence, rail, or tree, where they remain so very silent and motionless that it 
is no easy matter to discover them. 
When wounded they scramble off very awkwardly, and if taken in the 
hand immediately open their mouth to its full' extent repeatedly, as if the 
mandibles moved on hinges worked by a spring. They also strike with 
their wings in the manner of pigeons, but without any effect. 
The food of the Night-Hawk consists entirely of insects, especially those 
of the Coleopterous order, although they also seize on moths and caterpillars, 
and are very expert at catching crickets and grasshoppers, with which they 
sometimes gorge themselves, as they fly low over the ground with great 
rapidity. They now and then drink whilst flying closely over the watei’, 
in the manner of swallows. 
None of these birds remain during the winter in any portion of the United 
States. The Chuck-will’s-widow alone have I heard, and found far up the 
St. John’s river, in East Florida, in January. Frequently during autumn, 
at New Orleans, I have known some of these birds to remain searching for 
food over the meadows and river until the rainy season had begun, and then 
is the time at which the sportsmen shoot many of them down ; but the very 
next day, if the weather was still drizzly, scarcely one' could be seen there. 
When returning from the northern districts at a late period of the year, they 
pass close over the woods, and with so much rapidity, that you can obtain 
only a single glimpse of them. 
While at Indian Key, on the coast of Florida, I saw a pair of these birds 
killed by lightning, while they were on wing, during a tremendous thunder- 
storm. They fell on the sea, and after picking them up I examined them 
carefully, but failed to discover the least appearance of injury on the feathers 
or in the internal parts. 
Night-Hawk, Caprimulgus Americanus , Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. v. p. 65. 
Caprimulgus Virginianus, Bonap. Syn., p. 62. 
Caprimulgus (ChordeiLes) Yirginianus, Swains, and Rich. F. Bor. Amer., vol. i. 
p. 62. 
Night-Hawk, Caprimulgus Americanus , Nutt. Man., vol. i. p. 619. 
Night-Hawk, Caprimulgus Virginianus, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. ii. p. 273; vol. v. 
p. 406. 
