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CAPRIMULGUS CAROLINENSIS, 
10 . CAPRIMULGUS CA ROLIWENSIS. — CHUCK-WILL’s-WIDOW* 
AUDUBON, PLATE LII. 
Audubon remarks of this bird, that if the eggs in 
the nest are handled, the parents remove them to some 
other part of the wood. “ This singular occurrence,” 
says he, “ has as much occupied my thoughts as the 
equally singular manner in which the cow-hunting 
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-wilTs-widow removes her eggs or young, parti- 
cularly 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, imagined the transportation to be performed 
under the wings of the old bird. The account of the 
negroes appearing to me more likely to be true than 
‘ smelling death,’ formerly rendered their presence, or even their 
voice, ominous to all, as 
4 The hateful messengers of heavy things. 
Of death and dolour telling 
and the universal sound of their harsh croak, still, when illness is 
in the house, with some timid and affectionate persons, brings old 
fancies to remembrance, savouring of terror and alarm. I am no 
friend to the superstition of converting natural transactions or 
occasional events into signs and indications of coming things. 
Superstitions are wearing out, and shortly will waste away, and be 
no more heard of; but, 1 fear, in their place, deism, infidelity, 
impiety, have started up, the offspring of intuitive wisdom : the 
first belief arises from weakness and ignorance; the latter disbelief 
is ingratitude, pride, wickedness.”- — Journal of a Naturalist , 
