300 
CHUCK- WILUS-WIDOW. 
sudden ; their mouths, capable of prodigious expansion, to 
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, particularly about the 
head, and are provided with a comb on the inner edge of the 
middle claw, with which they are often employed in ridding 
themselves of these pests, at least when in a state of captivity. 
Having no weapons of defence, except their wings, their chief 
security is in the solitude of night, and in their colour and 
close retreats by day ; the former so much resembling that of 
dead leaves of various hues, as not to be readily distinguished 
from them even when close at hand. 
The Chuck-will’s-widow lays its eggs, two in number, on 
the ground generally, and, I believe, always in the woods ; it 
makes no nest ; the eggs are of a dull olive colour, sprinkled 
with darker specks, are about as large as those of a Pigeon, 
and exactly oval. Early in September they retire from the 
United States. 
This species is twelve inches long, and twenty-six in 
extent; bill, yellowish, tipt with black ; the sides of the mouth 
are armed with numerous long bristles, strong, tapering, and 
furnished with finer hairs branching from each ; cheeks and 
chin, rust colour, specked with black ; over the eye extends a 
line of small whitish spots ; head and back, very deep brown, 
powdered with cream, rust, and bright ferruginous, and marked 
with long ragged streaks of black ; scapulars, broadly spotted 
with deep black, bordered with cream, and interspersed with 
whitish ; the plumage of that part of the neck which falls over 
the back, is long, something like that of a cock, and streaked 
with yellowish brown ; wing quills, barred with black and 
bright rust ; tail, rounded, extending about an inch beyond 
the tips of the wings ; it consists of ten feathers, the four 
middle ones are powdered with various tints of ferruginous, 
and elegantly marked with fine zigzag lines, and large herring- 
bone figures of black ; exterior edges of the three outer 
feathers, barred like the wings ; their interior vanes, for 
