NIGHT HAWK. 
165 
to repeat these divings most frequently around those who 
come near the spot, sweeping down past them, sometimes 
so near, and so suddenly, as to startle and alarm them. 
The same individual is, however, often seen performing 
these manoeuvres over the river, the hill, the meadow, 
and the marsh, in the space of a quarter of an hour, 
and also towards the fall, when he has no nest. This 
singular habit belongs peculiarly to the male. The female 
has, indeed, the common hoarse note, and much the same 
mode of flight ; but never precipitates herself in the manner 
of the male. During the time she is sitting, she will suffer 
you to approach within a foot or two before she attempts to 
stir, and, when she does, it is in such a fluttering, tumbling 
manner, and with such appearance of a lame and wounded 
bird, as nine times in ten to deceive the person, and induce 
him to pursue her. This 66 pious fraud,” as the poet 
Thomson calls it, is kept up until the person is sufficiently 
removed from the nest, when she immediately mounts and 
disappears. When the young are first hatched, it is difficult 
to distinguish them from the surface of the ground, their 
down being of a pale brownish colour, and they are alto- 
gether destitute of the common shape of birds, sitting so 
fixed and so squat as to be easily mistaken for a slight 
prominent mouldiness lying on the ground. I cannot say 
whether they have two broods in the season ; I rather conjec- 
ture that they have generally but one. 
The Night Hawk is a bird of strong and vigorous flight, 
and of large volume of wing. It often visits the city, darting 
and squeaking over the streets at a great height, diving 
perpendicularly with the same hollow sound as before 
described. I have also seen them sitting on chimney tops in 
some of the most busy parts of the city, occasionally uttering 
their common note. 
When the weather happens to be wet and gloomy, the 
Night Hawks are seen abroad at all times of the day, generally 
at a considerable height ; their favourite time, however, is 
