. Gray lady and the birds; stories of the bird year for home and school . n, hasfrequently been shot at for prowess, the excuse being thatit wasnt any good, anyway. Aside from the list of in-sects harmful to agriculture and domestic animals thatit destroys, let us remember its crowning virtue, and cry Hands off! It kills mosquitoes, and has thus earnedthe local name of Mosquito-hawk. It is hard to believe that any one should insist thatthe Nighthawk and the Whip-poor-will are one and thesame bird, but such has been the case, and among intelli-gent people also, though the mistake has been defin
. Gray lady and the birds; stories of the bird year for home and school . n, hasfrequently been shot at for prowess, the excuse being thatit wasnt any good, anyway. Aside from the list of in-sects harmful to agriculture and domestic animals thatit destroys, let us remember its crowning virtue, and cry Hands off! It kills mosquitoes, and has thus earnedthe local name of Mosquito-hawk. It is hard to believe that any one should insist thatthe Nighthawk and the Whip-poor-will are one and thesame bird, but such has been the case, and among intelli-gent people also, though the mistake has been definitelysettled by one of the Wise Men. A NIGHTHAWK INCIDENT A discussion of the specific distinctness of the Whip-poor-will and Nighthawk, following an address to Con-necticut agriculturists some years ago, led to my receipt,in July, 1900, of an invitation from a gentleman who waspresent, to come and see a bird then nesting on his farmthat he believed combined the characters of both theWhip-poor-will and Nighthawk; in short, was the bird towhich both these names NICHTHAWKS THE TIDE HAS TURNED 371 Here was an opportunity to secure a much-desiredphotograph, and armed with the needed apparatus, aswell as specimens of both the Nighthawk and Whip-poor-will, I boarded an early train for Stevenson, Connecticut,prepared to gain my point with bird as well as with man. The latter accepted the specimens as incontrovertiblefacts, and readjusted his views as to the status of the birdsthey represented, and we may therefore at once turn ourattention to the Nighthawk, who was waiting so patientlyon a bit of granite out in the hay-fields. The sun wassetting when we reached the fiat rock on which her eggshad been laid and young hatched, and where she had lastbeen seen; but a fragment of egg-shell was the only evi-dence that the bare-looking spot had once been a birdshome. The grass had lately been mowed, and there wasno immediately surrounding cover in which the birdmight have hidden. It
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublishern, booksubjectbirds
