June 16, 1899 - Friday . 
This evening after supper I spent in watch- 
ing nighthawks near the house. There were 
thousands of them. One would flap and flutter 
a short distance and then utter a jffi it . I was 
watching one when it turned down and flew very- 
fast towards the ground. As it neared it it 
turned up. As it turned it made a roaring noise 
like the wheel of a wagon rubbing on the box. 
The noise was made by the wings. When it gets 
near the turn up it makes its body horizontal 
and the air rushing through the wings makes 
the sound. It is not always that it can do it. 
T saw one miss several times. I think that one 
had a nest on the flat top of the house. I was 
watching one when it suddenly came down level 
with the trees and gave a nervous excited note 
like kit kit kit _kit_ v/hile it flew along 
erratically like this 3 ascending 
an d 1 descending. 
June 17 , 1899 - Saturday . 
I hear a robin with a noticeable song every 
day from my window. It has notes in its song 
Tike wheot wheet turor. 
In the next yard is a family of red-headed 
woodpecker. They get on the top of some high 
Place and give a note like kwar. It is hard to 
represent. 
Went down the Mississippi river in a steam¬ 
boat this morning and up the Minnesota. A new 
railroad had been run through and cuts had been 
^de in the soft sandstone. Bank swallow's had 
built or dug thier nests here by the hundreds. 
The openings were all the way from 2 to 5 inches 
in diameter. The swallows flew in without stopp¬ 
ing. Sometimes two would go in, one after the 
other. 
