34 
FARMERS ’ BULLETIN 155 . 
insectivorous, and for this reason no blame can be attached to it on the score of its 
damaging crops. The only charge that can be made against the bird is that it destroys 
some useful insects, but these are far in the minority. 
Nighthawks are so expert in flight that no insects can escape them. They sweep 
up in their capacious mouths everything from the largest moths and dragonflies to 
the tiniest ants and gnats, and in this way sometimes gather most remarkable collec¬ 
tions of insects. Several stomachs have contained 50 or more different kinds, and 
the number of individuals may run into the thousands. 
Nearly a fourth of the bird’s total food is composed of ants. These insects are gener¬ 
ally annoying and often very injurious, especially in relation to stored products and 
in their activities in fostering destructive plant lice. More than a fifth of the night- 
hawk’s food consists of May beetles, dung beetles, and other beetles of the leaf chafer 
family. These are the adults of white grubs, noted pests, and even as adults many 
members of the family are decidedly harmful. 
Numerous other injurious beetles, as click beetles, wood borers, and weevils, are 
eaten. True bugs, moths, flies, grasshoppers, and crickets also are important elements 
of the food, as are several species of mosquitoes, including the transmitters of malaria. 
Other well-known pests consumed are the Colorado potato beetle, cucumber beetles, 
rice, clover leaf, 
and cotton boll 
weevils, billbugs, 
bark beetles, 
squash bugs, and 
moths of the cot- 
ton worm. No 
fewer than 18 spe¬ 
cies of bark bee¬ 
tles, which are 
among the most 
destructive forest 
enemies, have 
been identified in 
the food of the 
night hawk. 
Nighthawks de¬ 
servedly receive 
full legal protec¬ 
tion everywhere, 
and citizens 
should see that the law is obeyed. The nighthawk is far too useful and attractive a 
species to be persecuted. Especial attention should be given to safeguarding any 
eggs that may be found. They are deposited on the bare ground or rocks, on logs, or on 
flat gravel roofs in cities.— w. l. m. 
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO . 1 
Cuckoos are rather shy birds, keeping among the foliage of trees or bushes and 
making but little noise. They do not, however, entirely avoid the abodes of man, 
but where trees are abundant many may frequently be seen about houses or even in 
the village streets or parks. On very hot mornings in midsummer their familiar 
though not very musical cry of “kow-kow” is said to presage rain; hence the name 
“rain crow” by which these birds are frequently known. 
The two most abundant species in the United States are the black-billed and 
yellow-billed cuckoos, but the yellow-bill (fig. 18) is more abundant and better known 
in the South and probably is the more important economically. 
B2I 68-43 
Fig. 18.—Yellow-billed cuckoo. Length, about 12J inches. 
1 Coccyzm americanus. 
