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buff, or gray, profusely blotched or speckled with blackish, brownish gray, 
and lavender. 
Food. — Insects, such as flies, ants, mosquitoes, small beetles, grasshop¬ 
pers, crickets, and moths. 
The three forms of virginianus resemble each other so closely in 
habit and appearance that they are difficult to distinguish except in 
the hand. Their distribution is little help in determining them except 
during the breeding season when sennetti retires to the Dakotas ; for 
at other times henryi and sennetti range together from Dakota to 
Texas ; and even in the breeding season the eastern form makes irreg¬ 
ular irruptions into the range of the western. 
The nighthawks, while wholly absorbed in their own aerial pur¬ 
suits, nevertheless beguile many an hour for the weary wayfarer in 
the west. As the ambulance-like ‘ hack ’ or prairie schooner makes 
its slow way over the hot bare plains, the traveler hails with delight 
the sight of the little black stick lying on the ground in the midst 
of the glaring flatness. The bird’s eyes are shut and his long wings 
folded close to his sides, but at the sound of horses’ hoofs he is up in 
the sky, sailing this way and that, a bit of active life in the lifeless 
plain. 
Then when nightfall approaches and camp is pitched by a water- 
hole in the rocks, in the midst of the desolate expanse the traveler 
feels a thrill of homelike companionship as the ‘ peenC of a night- 
hawk makes him glance up and he finds a score of the old familiar 
forms zigzagging about showing their white wing crescents at the 
turns of their flight. 
IIow wonderfully at home they seem in the sky ! Now they soar 
with wings set at an angle, then flap along in a straight line, to dive 
suddenly straight down almost into camp with a loud, whizzing 
boom. 
In the nesting season as the hunter crosses a bare space among 
the rocks on the mountains, sometimes a nighthawk will start from 
under his very feet and with wings outspread and tail hanging 
trail lamely off till satisfied with her ruse, when with swift strong 
flight she makes a wide circle and returns either to trail once more 
before him or to settle down on a rock where she can watch to see 
if he has discovered her almost invisible young. 
420a. C. v. henryi (Cass.). Western Nighthawk. 
Similar to virginianus , but paler; upper parts mainly light grayish 
huffy or ochraceous ; dark bars on under parts spaced with tawny white. 
Remarks. — Though lighter than virginianus , henryi is much darker 
than sennetti, which is light brown, buffy, and on wing coverts mainly 
whitish. 
Distribution. — Breeds in Transition and Canadian zones of the western 
