ANTROSTOMUS CAROLINENS1S. 
207 
locality in daylight, some prominent object may be found like a stump, log, or a branch 
destitute of foliage upon which one may be reasonably certain the birds alight; then by 
hiding early in the ensuing evening in a place where the birds can be seen when they 
come, a shot can be obtained at them, for I have observed that when they once select any 
particular point as a resting place, they will return to it repeatedly to sing. This habit 
once proved quite annoying to me as one selected the ornamental top of my tent-pole where 
he would sound his loud notes continuously. He took care, however, not to settle there 
until we were all asleep but the sound would always awaken me, when upon my making 
the slightest noise, off he would go, only to return when I had once more begun to doze. 
He favored us more with his visits on moonlight nights than at other times, and proved a 
great nuisance until I finally managed to shoot him. 
When mellowed by distance, the lay of the Chuck-will’s Widow has a soft, dreamy 
cadence which has an extremely soothing effect, for then only two of the notes are audi¬ 
ble, the third and fourth, the more emphatic and harsher chuck remaining unheard. Be¬ 
sides the notes of which I have spoken, these birds utter a croaking sound when alarmed 
or when in pursuit of their mates. When excited by a feeling of rivalry or by the sight 
of the female, the song, like that of the Whippoorwill, is given with such rapidity that it 
becomes a series of notes which end abruptly as the female comes sailing by, for then the 
male starts in pursuit of her. When aroused from the ground, the birds will frequently 
alight on a branch crosswise; in fact, they appear to have more grasping power in their 
toes than is possessed by the Whippoorwills for, although I have seen this latter named 
species alight as described, yet they more often rest longitudinally on the object upon which 
they are sitting, like the Night Hawks. 
I have had quite a number of the eggs of the Chuck-will’s Widow in my possession, 
yet I have found but one nest. I was walking through a hummock when one of those 
black, half-wild hogs so common in Florida, jumped up from a thicket in which he had 
been resting and made off among the palmettos. I looked after him mechanically when I 
observed a Chuck-will’s Widow start from the ground directly in front of him. As this 
was the first of May and as I had shot a female only a day or two before which was about 
to lay, I at once conjectured that the bird had a nest there. Keeping my eyes carefully 
on the spot, I hastened forward and, guided by the tracks of the hog, soon found the eggs. 
There were two of them and they were lying upon the fragments of palmetto leaves with¬ 
out any other attempt at a nest than a slight hollow scratched in the debris. The bird 
must have remained on them until the nose of the intruding animal was actually over her, 
for she appeared to start from beneath his feet and she must have moved quickly as he 
was trotting quite briskly. Unfortunately, one of the animal’s hoofs grazed an egg, break¬ 
ing a hole in the side, disclosing the fact that they contained embryos quite far advanced 
which may partly account for the parent sitting so closely. 
The Chuck-will’s Widows make their appearance in Florida shortly after the middle 
of March and the eggs are deposited about the last week in April. Of the nestling and 
subsequent changes in plumage before acquiring the adult stage, I know nothing, as the 
birds had always departed in early autumn, before my arrival in Florida. 
