Life Histories of North American Cuckoos, Goatsuckers, Hummingbirds, and Their Allies (continued 5)

Egg dates.—California: 16 records, April 7 to June 24; 8 records, April 21 to May 17, indicating the height of the season.

Illinois: 5 records, May 10 to June 8.

Massachusetts: 8 records, May 11 to June 6.

New York: 27 records, April 10 to July 15; 14 records, May 10 to 29.

Ontario: 7 records, May 24 to June 28.

MEGACERYLE ALCYON CAURINA (Grinnell)

WESTERN BELTED KINGFISHER

Plate 15

HABITS

It has long been known that the kingfishers of the Pacific coast are appreciably larger than eastern birds, but Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1910) was the first to give the western race a name. He characterizes it as “similar to the Ceryle alcyon of eastern and southern North America, but size throughout greater, especially measurements of flight-feathers,” and goes on to say that “the secondary wing quills are proportionally longer in the northwestern birds. This means that in addition to its greater expanse of wing and generally larger size, the wing of caurina is broader. In the closed wing this difference presents itself conspicuously in the interval between the end of the longest secondary and the tip of the longest primary. In the northwestern birds this interval averages only 27.3 mm., while in the eastern birds it averages 33.7 mm. This is in spite of the larger size of the former. The ratio to total wing length in the two cases is 17 and 22 per cent., respectively.”

The nesting habits of the western belted kingfisher seem to be very similar to those of the eastern bird; I find no record of its nesting anywhere but in sand, clay, or gravel banks; such banks are often much higher than those in the East, so the nesting burrow is often at a considerable height from the base, but usually near the top of the cliff.

In all other respects its habits are not materially different from those of the species elsewhere. Grinnell and Storer (1924) say: “This bird’s wing-beat is characteristic, three quick beats followed by two executed in a more leisurely manner, like this: one, two, three; four; five.

“A Western Belted Kingfisher watched by Mr. Walter P. Taylor came to a perch on a bare limb overhanging some rapids in the river, and sat there motionless. The outline of the bird’s body at once became indistinguishable from the light and shade of its background; in other words it was obliterated because of the disruptive pattern of its coloration, white and slate areas alternating. If the fishes in the water beneath got the same impression as did the human observer, the kingfisher must have become invisible to them, remaining so until the moment of its headlong plunge in their pursuit.”

The eggs of the western belted kingfisher are similar to those of the eastern bird and average only slightly larger. The measurements of 38 eggs average 34.78 by 26.89 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 36.6 by 27.4, 35.7 by 28, 31.6 by 27, and 33 by 25.4 millimeters.

MEGACERYLE TORQUATA TORQUATA (Linnaeus).

RINGED KINGFISHER

Plate 17

HABITS

This handsome bird is the largest of the three species of kingfisher found on the American Continent. Its claim to a place on our list is based on the capture of a single specimen, an adult female, by George B. Benners, on June 2, 1888, about a mile below Laredo, Tex., on the United States side of the Rio Grande. The specimen was presented to the Academy of Natural Sciences, in Philadelphia, of which Dr. Witmer Stone (1894) says: “It was sitting on some old roots which had been washed up into a heap by the current of the river, and was shot immediately, so that he did not see it fly or hear its call. Mr. Benners further states that he never saw one of these birds in the vicinity either before or since. Upon the strength of the evidence just given this species seems entitled to a place in the fauna of the United States, along with several other tropical birds which occasionally reach the Rio Grande valley.”

Col. A. J. Grayson, in his notes from western Mexico, sent to George N. Lawrence (1874), says:

I have seen the largest kingfisher only near the sea coast, in the vicinity of Mazatlan River, but not on that stream. They seem to prefer the stagnant pools and lagoons, whose waters are murky and densely shaded with overhanging trees; here upon some dried branch it sits quietly watching the opaque water for whatever finny creature may make its appearance upon the surface, when if not too large, it instantly darts or plunges headlong upon it; after securing the prey in its powerful bill, it bears it to the perch, and beating it a few times upon the perch swallows it entire. Small fishes constitute almost its principal food, but frogs and small water reptiles are often struck and devoured by it. This species does not seem to be so wary as its near congener, the Belted. I have approached it quite near, in order to observe its habits, and it appeared to be very little concerned at my presence. In examining the stomach of one shot by me, I found it crammed with the small fry peculiar to muddy pools, among which was a mud catfish of considerable size. It doubtless breeds in holes scratched in sand cliffs, like the other members of this family, but I have never encountered the nest.

Dickey and van Rossem (1938) say that in El Salvador⁠—

the ringed kingfisher is of general distribution along the coast where it shows decided preference for mangrove lagoons. Locally, the species is almost equally common on fresh water wherever there is a plentiful supply of small fish. It is notable, though, that the species attains its upward limit at Lake Guija at 1,450 feet, and seems to be absent from the higher lakes such as Ilopango. It is customarily solitary, although local conditions such as a very favorable stream may result in a number being found at one point. A great deal of territory may be covered by individual birds, for they seem to have regular routes along lake borders and rivers with lookout perches at intervals of every few hundred yards. In activity this species is far ahead of any of the other resident kingfishers and evidently prefers to range widely for its prey rather than to stake out a limited, private preserve.

Alexander F. Skutch tells me that in the Caribbean lowlands of Guatemala and Honduras they are partial to the larger, more open streams and lagoons, and avoid the narrow, tree-shaded waterways that the smaller species of kingfisher sometimes frequent.

Nesting.—Major Bendire (1895) quotes Dr. Herman Burmeister (1856) as saying that “it nests in perpendicular banks, occasionally quite a distance from water, in burrows from 5 to 6 feet deep, and lays two white eggs.”

There are two sets of eggs, one of five and one of six eggs, in the Thayer collection, taken for Frank B. Armstrong, on March 21 and 30, 1910, near Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico. One of the nests is described as a hole in the bank of a river, 8 feet deep and 10 feet above water.

Dickey and van Rossem (1938) state that “at San Sebastián in late July, 1912, nest holes were occasionally noted in vertical sandy banks. In size these holes were on an average four inches wide and three inches high at the entrance. Those investigated went straight back into the bank, in one case as far as six feet. This particular burrow then may have made a turn, but it was not dug out.”

Alexander F. Skutch has very kindly lent me his unpublished manuscript for a proposed work on the birds of the Caribbean lowlands of Central America, which contains much interesting information on this species, from which I shall quote freely. He says that, in that region, these kingfishers “begin the excavation of their burrows in February, if not earlier. Their nesting is of necessity limited to the drier season when the rivers are lowest, which in this region extends from February to the end of May. The flood waters of June often undermine and eat away the banks in which they nest, if they do not actually rise high enough to flood their tunnels. Since they begin the excavation of their burrows early and raise a single brood each year, they proceed with their task in a leisurely fashion, and one may watch long and in vain for them to return to their work.

“One morning toward the end of February I concealed myself in a blind before a burrow in a bank of sandy loam beside the Rio Morja, near the boundary between Guatemala and Honduras. The tunnel was already well advanced and went far beneath the banana plants at the top of the bank, which had been freshly cut when the river ate into the plantation at the last high water. Although I began the watch early in the morning, it was 11 o’clock before I heard the measured kleck kleck kleck, and turning saw one of the pair approaching from upstream. It soon entered the burrow and remained within several minutes, appearing not to notice the rough-winged swallow that fluttered before the tunnel and several times rested in the entrance while it was busy inside. On emerging, the kingfisher perched atop a banana leaf and kept up a running conversation in low rattles with its mate, out of sight around the bend up-river. In five minutes it flew upstream to join the other, calling with a loud kleck kleck kleck.

“Soon the pair returned together and began to work in earnest. Each time one entered the burrow there was a jet of earth thrown out behind. As the bird moved inward the jet fell short of the entrance until it could be seen no more. Doubtless the bird continued to kick the earth back until it reached the head of the excavation, and so the material loosened by the bill was gradually pushed out of the tunnel. The kingfishers invariably emerged head first, indicating that the burrow had reached its final length and had begun to widen at the far end into the nesting chamber. The bird inside called in low klecks, which were answered by the mate perched on a rusty tram rail, washed out by the flood, which leaned against the bank just below the burrow. They seemed to encourage each other in their dark subterranean labors. Both sexes shared equally in the toil, and as soon as one emerged and flew up beside the other on the rail, the latter went into the burrow, throwing out a jet of earth as he disappeared into the darkness. Four or five minutes was the usual period spent in the earthwork. On one occasion both were together in the burrow for a few minutes. Just after noon, while one bird was working inside, its mate became tired of waiting on the rail and flew upstream. The other, when it emerged and found itself alone, followed in this direction. Although I remained until the middle of the afternoon, the birds did not return, having worked less than an hour that day.

“I waited almost a month before daring to open the nest. I probed the length of the burrow with a slender vine, repeating the measurement several times to make sure I had reached the back. I found the burrow to be 7 feet 3 inches long, measured back this distance from the top of the bank, and tried to calculate the position of the nesting chamber from the direction of the portion of the tunnel I could see from the front. Experience with Amazon kingfishers and motmots had taught me that by far the safest way to open a burrow is to dig down behind it and make an opening in the back of the nesting chamber just large enough to reach the eggs, afterward closing it with a stone or a board and carefully covering over the excavation.

“As I began to dig almost above it, the incubating bird, who had stood its ground in face of the thrusts with the vine, flew out, uttered a few klecks and headed upstream, where it perched on a giant cane leaning over the current and soon plunged for a fish. I now saw for the first time that it was the male. Like other burrow-nesting birds under the same circumstances, it seemed rather unconcerned, and this despite the fact that I afterward found it the most devoted of parents.”

Because he “had faith that the activities of birds, including their periods on the nest during incubation, are rhythmic and more or less constant for the species, rather than irregular and arbitrary,” Mr. Skutch was determined to learn how these kingfishers arranged their shifts on the nest. In his efforts to solve this problem, he was at “first baffled, next challenged, and finally surprised.” For many weary hours, during nearly two weeks, and at various hours from dawn to sunset, he patiently watched that hole in the bank, mostly with little or no results. The use of what he called a “silent monitor,” a small stick stuck upright and loosely in the entrance of the burrow, enabled him to tell that a bird had either entered or left the nest, but did not tell him the hour or the sex of the bird. His account of how he accomplished this and finally learned the secret is too long a story to be told here. But he did finally discover “that there is a single nest relief each day, early in the morning. This is comparatively easy to observe, for the bird coming to take its place in the burrow usually flies downstream sounding his powerful, metallic kleck kleck at measured intervals, and so heralds his own arrival.” After three or four false starts he finally gathers courage to enter the burrow; and, after a minute and a half or two minutes, his mate launches forth and flies off upstream. The times at which the relief took place varied from 7:05 to 10:01 a. m., most of the shifts being made between seven and nine o’clock. He says, further: “After I learned what precautions were necessary in order to determine the sexes of the birds, I found that on some mornings it was the male who entered and the female who departed, while on other mornings the reverse was true. There was a regular alternation, the male entering one morning and the female the next.

“Each afternoon the incubating partner took a single recess, for food or exercise, from its long 24-hour turn on the eggs. It emerged suddenly and without warning, at some time between 1 and 4 o’clock, flew upstream to the feeding ground, leaving the nest unoccupied, and returned in half an hour to an hour. On returning, it flew downstream low above the water and entered the nest directly, without perching or calling, in a manner very different from the morning entry, since there was no mate on the nest to be advised of its arrival. Then it remained until relieved by the mate the following morning.

“Few birds incubate so continuously as the ringed kingfishers. One day the female took her afternoon recess early, and on returning remained on the nest more than 19 hours, for her mate was very late in relieving her the next morning, and did not appear until 10 o’clock. The usual period between their return in the afternoon and their relief the following morning is 16 or 17 hours.”

Mr. Skutch found another nest of this kingfisher “400 feet downstream in the same bank. I opened it only two days before the eggs hatched. The bird on the nest, with a degree of attachment I have rarely seen equaled, remained bravely in the tunnel while I probed its length, dug in the rear, took out the eggs for measurement, fitted a stone in the aperture I had made, and tamped the soil above it. All this occupied well over an hour. This burrow was 7 feet 9 inches in length and the nesting chamber, 22 inches below the surface, contained, like the last, four white eggs. The territories of these two pairs extended in opposite directions from their burrows, the birds from the upper nest always entering it from upstream and returning thither when relieved, those in the lower nest fishing in the river below it.”

Eggs.—The ringed kingfisher apparently lays three to six eggs to a set; probably four and five are the commonest numbers. What few eggs I have seen are pure white; they vary in shape from ovate to short-ovate; and the shells are smooth and quite glossy. The measurements of 19 eggs average 43.72 by 34.52 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 46.8 by 35, 43.7 by 35.6, and 39.7 by 32.5 millimeters.

Young.—On the morning of March 28, the female arrived, at the first burrow examined by Mr. Skutch, at sunrise, an unusually early hour for her to appear, and seemed to be excited. He opened the burrow and found that two of the eggs had hatched. The nestlings were “pink skinned and were without the least vestige of feathers. They could already stand upright, supporting themselves on their feet and belly, and attempted to walk, which they did in a weak and tottering fashion.” Three of the eggs in the other nest hatched the same day; as he removed the stone from the rear, “a sizzling noise arose from the earth,” and two of the nestlings retreated into the tunnel with their mother, where they could not be reached.

Soon after the young in the first nest had hatched, some malicious person dug into the burrow at both ends but could not reach the young in the tunnel. Three of these nestlings eventually died, but the parents continued to feed and brood the fourth in the exposed and gaping burrow. Then, Mr. Skutch continues: “Stuffed with whole fish to the bursting point, the single nestling grew at a tremendous rate. Its eyes opened by the tenth day, when it uttered a high-pitched, trilling sound in response to its parents’ rattle. It was 14 days before the upper mandible caught up to the lower in length. The young kingfisher was beginning to defend itself with energy and bit hard with its great mandibles whenever I picked it up. A few days later it squealed and fought like a fury. When 4 weeks old it was fully feathered except for the naked belly, which rested upon the sandy floor of the foul burrow. To its biting and squealing it now added an alarm rattle almost as loud as that of the parents, which at length drew one of them, who answered in kind. Still it did not attempt to flutter, and when I placed it on the ground it could do no more than hop along with outstretched wings. It remained in the burrow a full week after it was completely feathered, and finally departed at the age of 34 or 35 days.

“Although this nestling was one of the most vociferous I ever encountered, its struggles and cries were very mild in comparison with those of the single youngster who survived in the burrow downstream.” When about 4 weeks old, it was almost as big as its parents. When he attempted to reach it from the back of the nest, “it fled through the tunnel and jumped into the river, where it spread its wings, turned upstream, and flapped its way slowly against the current. When it encountered obstacles of stranded brush it hooked its bill over them and scrambled across. Thus it led me a merry chase, wading in the muddy shallows, until a fallen banana plant stopped its wayward progress and I seized it. Unlike its neighbor of the same age upstream, it had not become accustomed to being taken in hands; its deafening screams and fierce attempts to bite made, for duration and intensity, the best efforts of the other pale to insignificance. It was ten agonized minutes before it became reconciled to me, and I let it perch on my hand until its feathers dried before returning it to the burrow. This bird left its burrow between its thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh day.”

Plumages.—I have seen no very young birds. In immature birds, probably birds of the first year, the sexes are distinguishable. In the young male, the jugular area is dull gray washed with “cinnamon,” and the under tail coverts are pale cinnamon, both of which parts are pure white in the adult male, though some adults have the under tail coverts barred with bluish gray; the brown areas on the under parts are paler than in the adult, “ochraceous-tawny” to “cinnamon,” more or less mixed with white; these parts in the adult are rich browns, “Sanford’s brown” to “cinnamon-rufous”; the upper parts and wing coverts are dotted with small white spots, and many of the feathers have shaft streaks or median wedges of black; these parts are clear, grayish blue, or “delft blue,” in adults, without streaks; young birds also have broad, median, black streaks in the crest. Young females are similar to the young males but may be readily recognized by the broad pectoral band, which is never present in the male at any age; in the adult female this is clear bluish gray, but in the young bird it is broadly edged with rufous, or dull brown, and sometimes mainly rufous; in the young female the under wing coverts are wholly “cinnamon-rufous,” whereas in the young male these are partly white.

I have not seen enough material to determine how long these immature plumages are worn, or to learn much about the molts.

Food.—Mr. Skutch (MS.) says on this subject: “The ringed kingfisher’s diet is rather monotonous. They live almost entirely, if not exclusively on fish, often of large size, which they catch in the regular manner of kingfishers, but being larger birds their plunges are more spectacular than those of the others.”

One day “a female flew into a balsa tree, growing beside a small stream, with a fish fully half as long as herself dangling crosswise in her bill. For more than two and a half hours by the watch she held it thus, changing her position only from one branch to another of the same tree. I was at the time watching a green kingfisher’s nest, and I could keep her in sight without additional effort. When at length I was ready to leave, she had begun to beat her fish against the limb, although it must have been dead long since. After this exhibition of stolidity, I no longer felt sorry for the ringed kingfishers because the customs of their race obliged them to sit on the nest for such long periods.”

Behavior.—Dr. Charles W. Richmond (1893) found this species very common in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and he writes of its habits:

One morning a pair of these birds went through a very curious performance. Attention was first called to them by their loud rattling cry, which was kept up almost constantly as they circled and gyrated about over the water, occasionally dropping—not diving—into the water, and sinking below the surface for a moment. This maneuvering lasted some minutes, after which both birds flew upstream uttering their ordinary note.

Two or three individuals were in the habit of passing the night at some point on the creek back of the “I. P.” plantation, and came over just about dusk every evening. I noticed them for several months, and was struck with the regularity of their coming, and the course taken by each on its way to the roost. The birds could be heard a considerable distance away, just before dusk, uttering their loud single “chuck” at every few beats of the wings. They appeared to come from their feeding grounds, often passing over the plantation opposite, probably to cut off a bend in the river. One of the birds invariably passed close to the corner of the laborers’ quarters, though at considerable height, and the other near a trumpet tree some distance away. The third bird was only a casual visitor. At times the birds came together, but usually there was an interval of several minutes. Their routes met at a turn of the creek a few rods back of the house, where they usually sounded their rattling notes and dropped down close to the water, which they followed to the roost. This was a huge spreading tree, covered with parasitic plants and numerous vines, which hung in loops and festoons from the limbs. On one occasion I shot at one of the birds as it came clucking overhead, and caused it to drop several small fish. A female nearly ready to deposit eggs was shot October 9.

Referring to the behavior of ringed kingfishers, Mr. Skutch (MS.) writes: “Watercourses are their highways, and, like men, they are frequently reluctant to leave them. One day, ascending in a motor launch the Toloa Creek in Honduras, we drove a ringed kingfisher before us for possibly a mile. Each time the boat approached he would leave his perch, fly a few hundred feet ahead, and finally alight in a branch overhanging the stream. Here he would wait until the launch was almost opposite him, then fly ahead of it a few hundred feet more. Only after this procedure had been repeated many times did he finally double over the bank and return downstream.”

He noticed, while studying the program of nest relief, that these kingfishers “showed a certain amount of formalism in their natures.” One morning while he was on watch, “at 7:30 the male emerged from the burrow without warning [and without waiting to be relieved by the female in the usual way] and flew upstream as usual. I was surprised at this unexpected behavior, but probably no more than his mate. Five minutes later she appeared from the direction of his departure and perched in a trumpet tree growing on the bank a few rods from the burrow, where she often rested before going to relieve the male on the nest. Soon he reappeared and the female, who had not moved, greeted him with a rapid, low rattle, which was evidently a scolding. A minute later he flew upstream again. I thought now the female would certainly enter, it was her day upon the nest, but such an unwelcomed entry would have been a breach in formality, beneath the dignity of a well-bred kingfisher matron. She delayed another minute, as though considering what course to follow, then flew off after the delinquent. Soon they both returned, but separately, and there was a rather lengthy conversation between the pair as they perched on the banana leaves near the entrance of the burrow. Finally, after flying back and forth several times before it, the male entered, rather sheepishly we may suppose, while his mate continued to kleck from her perch in a low voice.

“Mrs. kingfisher had won her point. She delayed a seemly interval for him to compose himself for her reception, then entered herself with the usual warning. I shall probably never know what passes between them in the fraction of a minute they must be together in the nesting chamber, but whatever form of greeting they indulge in, we may well suppose it was not as cordial as usual. The male came out in record time, about one minute after his mate’s entry, and turned upstream, klecking loudly, a free bird at last.”

A change in the behavior of the two males was noted after the young had hatched in the two nests, of which Mr. Skutch (MS.) writes: “The males of both nests, both of whom happened to be free that day, behaved differently than on previous mornings. After being relieved, they had gone off as usual to their respective territories up and down the stream; but instead of remaining there, as they had always done before the eggs hatched, they soon returned to perch at no great distance from their nests, and loudly protested my presence. In their excitement, both perched at the same time in the trumpet tree which grew on the bank of the river between the two nests, and was apparently the boundary between their territories. They stood side by side on a branch, their beautiful, white-barred, slate-colored wings spread until they almost touched. One raised his crest, but the other laid his flat, and, with open bills and angry klecks, each defied the other to cross the accepted frontier.”

Voice.—The same patient observer says: “Now that there were nestlings, I heard an utterance from the kingfishers that I had never heard before. It was really not so much a new note as a different manner of using the old familiar one, for their entire vocabulary consists of a sound that to our ears is suggested by the syllable kleck, but they employ their single word in a great variety of ways to express different meanings and emotions. A single loud kleck, uttered at measured intervals, punctuates their flight; a softer, rapidly repeated kleck is the signal that a bird wishes to relieve his mate on the nest; and now there were nestlings to guard they expressed their anxiety by a very loud, rapid, mechanical klecking, continued with momentary pauses so long as danger seemed to threaten. This harsh, deafening rattle was uttered while the bird perched with the bill open, the mandibles held motionless, and the tail vibrating rapidly up and down. I never heard another bird make more noise when its nestlings seemed to be in danger, nor give more evident signs of distress, yet, in common with other birds which nest underground, they never darted at me nor made any demonstration. They merely perched in full sight and rattled interminably.”

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Mexico, the Lesser Antilles, Central and South America; casual in the lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas; nonmigratory.

The range of the ringed kingfisher extends north to Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands and San Blas); Tamaulipas (Rio Cruz and Tampico); Honduras (Toloa and Lancetilla); northern Colombia (Cartagena, Sabanilla, and Santa Marta); northern Venezuela (Lake Valencia); the Lesser Antilles (Goyave); British Guiana (Georgetown and Blairmont); Surinam (Paramaribo); and northern Brazil (Santarem and Capim River). East to Brazil (Capim River and Cantagalla); Uruguay (Rio Negro); and Argentina (Villegas, Puerto Santa Elena, and Tierra del Fuego). South to southern Argentina (Tierra del Fuego); and southern Chile (Chonos Archipelago). West to Chile (Chonos Archipelago and Chiloe Island); western Peru (Huachos and Lima); western Ecuador (Tumbez, Bucay, Babahoyo, and Vinces); western Colombia (Cali and Honda); Panama (San Miguel and Alminante Bay); Costa Rica (Pozo Azul and Bolson); western Guatemala (Rio Morja); Jalisco (Las Penas Island); and Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands).

Casual records.—The only United States record of this species is a specimen in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia that was collected on the American side of the Rio Grande, near Laredo, Texas, on June 2, 1888.

Egg dates.—Guatemala: March.

Mexico: March 21 and 30.

Peru: May 29.

CHLOROCERYLE AMERICANA SEPTENTRIONALIS (Sharpe)

TEXAS KINGFISHER

Plate 16

HABITS

I made the acquaintance of this pretty little kingfisher when I made a short visit to Cameron County, Tex., as the guest of George Finlay Simmons, in May 1923. This is a most interesting bird country, rich in the number of Mexican species that reach their northern limits here and the only region in which some of them can be found within the limits of the United States. About Brownsville the chaparral, the open prairies, the tree claims, the ponds, and the swamps were all teeming with bird life of many species; but perhaps the most interesting of all were the dense forests along the resacas or stagnant watercourses, the old beds of rivers; these often contained large trees, mesquite, huisache, ebony, palms, etc., with a thick undergrowth of many shrubs and small trees, such as granjena, persimmons, coffee bean, and bush morning-glory. Here we found the characteristic birds of the region in abundance, such as the chachalaca, the red-billed pigeon, the noisy derby flycatcher, the brilliant green jay, and Audubon’s oriole. Here, too, I was delighted to see my first Texas kingfisher, as it sat on a dead fallen tree over the water and then went flying away upstream, uttering its rattling twitter, suggestive of but different from that of the belted kingfisher.

Mr. Simmons (1925) says that it is “resident along clearer mountain streams of southwest-central Texas, from Comal County southward. * * * Occurrence depends largely on its habitat, the bird requiring the clearest of waters, particularly the crystal-clear rivers and brooks of the central Texas hill area; dislikes water the least bit muddy; larger, clearer streams and rarely smaller ones,” as well as “shady little brooks,” are mentioned as its favorite haunts.

Dickey and van Rossem (1938) record this kingfisher as a “common resident throughout the arid Lower Tropical Zone on all freshwater lakes, streams, and marshes below 2,300 feet, and also coast-wise in the mangrove belt,” in El Salvador. Of its haunts they say: “A favorite environment is along small, rocky streams of the uplands, and in such places the population averages about a pair to the mile. When the young of the year are on the wing, this average is considerably increased for a time. Probably the section of stream inhabited by any individual pair has pretty definite limits, for although individual birds or pairs show no hesitancy in keeping well ahead of a person for a time, sooner or later they will make every effort to break back along the route to the places from where they were first started. Salt water is apparently not greatly to their liking, and in the mangrove lagoons they were decidedly uncommon. Scarcity of suitable nesting sites may, however, be in part responsible for this condition.”

Alexander F. Skutch found this kingfisher on small streams as high as 7,000 feet above sea level in the highlands of Guatemala, and writes (MS.) of its haunts: “While toiling over the rocky bed of some narrow torrent rushing down a mountain valley, where the huge trees arch overhead and shut out the sky, I have often heard a pleasant cheep and turned to watch the solitary figure of a green kingfisher fly swiftly past, low above the water and following all the twistings of the channel, until lost in the depth of the forest. While his larger relatives require deeper water and a longer drop, he is often content to plunge from the top of a boulder projecting a foot or so above a shallow channel, and fishes on the smaller streams from which they are absent; but he joins them on the broader and more sluggish waterways. He rarely hovers above the water in the manner of the larger kingfishers.”

Nesting.—The first account of the nesting of the Texas kingfisher is by William Brewster (1879), who writes: “This beautiful little Kingfisher was found by Mr. Werner in comparative abundance at several points in Comal County, notably about some of the springs that empty into the Guadaloupe River. A set of six eggs, taken April 25, 1878, was authenticated by the capture of both parent birds, the female being caught on the nest. * * * The nesting cavity was in a sandy bank near the water’s edge. The eggs were laid on the bare sand, no fish bones or other extraneous material being near. The entrance was not quite 1¾ inches in diameter, and the hole extended inward from the face of the bank about 3½ feet.”

Bendire (1895) says:

The nests of many of these little Kingfishers are yearly destroyed by high water flooding their burrows, caused by heavy rains and cloud-bursts, which are more or less prevalent in southern and western Texas. It is not uncommon on both the Medina and San Antonio rivers, and a nesting site on the last-mentioned stream found by Mr. C. H. Kearny, in the spring of 1892, containing six fresh eggs, is described by him as being located in a bank about 15 feet high and about 5 feet above the water level. The nesting chamber, which was slightly larger than the tunnel leading to it, was placed about 2 feet from the mouth of the hole. There was no nest proper, but a few fish bones and scales were scattered about the eggs. In the same bank a number of Bank Swallows (Clivicola riparia) had taken up temporary homes, and one of their holes was located within a foot of that of the Kingfishers. They are devoted parents, and these birds will usually allow themselves to be caught rather than forsake their eggs.

There are four sets of eggs of this kingfisher in the Thayer collection and one in the writer’s collection, all taken by, or for, Frank B. Armstrong, near Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico, between March 12 and 28, 1908. The nests were all in holes in banks, about 3 feet deep and 6 to 8 feet above the water.

Mr. Skutch says (MS.) that this kingfisher, which he calls the green kingfisher, is one of the five species of birds that nest most commonly in the banks of the streams in the Caribbean lowlands of Central America. “The burrows of the ringed kingfisher are distinguished at once by the large diameter of the tunnel, 6 inches in width. Next in size are those of the Amazon kingfisher, 3¾ inches wide. Then come those of the turquoise-browed motmot, about 3½ inches in width; and finally those of the green kingfisher, only 2 or 2¼ inches in horizontal diameter.

“While the burrows of the larger kingfishers and the motmot are placed in plain sight in the bare and exposed banks, so that he who runs may see them, those of the green kingfisher I have found concealed by the fringe of vines and dead vegetation draping the top of the bank, or else behind exposed roots, and I discovered them only by seeing a bird enter or leave. Theirs were the last of the three kingfishers’ nests I encountered, and I found only two, late in the season, although the species is equally abundant with the Amazon kingfisher. As befits the smaller bird, their burrows are far shorter than those of the larger species. The two I measured were only 22 and 25 inches in length.

“One morning at the end of April, I sat down to eat my breakfast upon a fallen log beside the Quebrada de Arena, a little brook so narrow that one can easily jump across it, flowing through a pasture grown up with low bushes and thorny vine tangles. Presently a male green kingfisher flew downstream, perched on a branch ahead of me, ticked a great deal and seemed excited about my presence. The bird’s persistence in remaining in that stretch of the river and his evident excitement renewed my conviction [on a previous visit] that his burrow was not far distant. I removed my shoes and waded up and down, examining every likely bit of bank, while the bird flew back and forth to keep out of my way. I discovered only old burrows whose lack of fresh foot-furrows proclaimed clearly enough they were not in use. Quite baffled, I paused beneath the shelter of some overhanging bushes to watch the bird, and in a few minutes, after calling again tick tick tick, he flew up beneath the exposed roots of a dead stump, half washed out, and disappeared. This was almost the exact spot whence I had seen him or his mate emerge three weeks before, but the entrance to the burrow was so well concealed by the overhang of the top of the bank, the projecting roots and the vines which draped over them, that it had completely escaped me.

“I lost no time in opening the burrow. The male flew out with the second push I gave the machete which I used to dig, for the tunnel sloped upward so sharply that the nesting chamber was less than three inches below the surface of the ground, and I broke through into the rear of it before I supposed I had well started to dig. There were three white eggs, well advanced in incubation, to judge from their opacity. The male fluttered several times in front of the burrow, eager to enter before it had been closed again. I fitted a stone over the small aperture I had made, covered it with earth, and placed logs across the roof of the nesting chamber, to prevent the mules’ stepping upon it and possibly breaking through. The birds continued to incubate.

“The pair arranged their turns on the eggs in much the same manner as the Amazon kingfishers. The female spent each night on the nest. Soon after 6 a. m. the male flew downstream, low above the water, uttering at intervals the high-pitched cheep, which is his flight call. He perched on one of the roots of the old stump projecting in front of the nest and called tick tick tick in a low voice, which his mate heard in the burrow. She came forth, greeting him with a single cheep, as she flew swiftly past and turned down the brook to her feeding grounds. Her behavior was rather erratic.

“One morning she could not await his arrival, although he was hardly late. She popped out of the nest without warning and flew off, but a minute later the pair returned together. The male went to the root in front of the burrow, ticked just as much as he was accustomed to do to call off his mate, although he could certainly see she was not inside, then entered the empty burrow. The following morning she acted in quite another manner. Just after 6, on a cloudy morning after a night of hard rain, the male flew downstream, perched in front of the burrow, and ticked for her to come forth, but she paid no heed to his repeated calls. He flew a few rods downstream, then returned to call tick tick tick again. Still no response, so he flew away out of sight. Ten minutes later he reappeared and perched again on the root in front of the burrow, where he called at intervals for two minutes before at length she darted forth. Then he entered for the morning. The male incubated until the female returned from her breakfast to relieve him. One morning she left him on the nest less than two hours, but the next it was nearly three. She covered the eggs for the remainder of the morning. The male was chiefly responsible for keeping them warm during the afternoon, until his mate called him from the nest and entered for the night at some time between 5 and 6 o’clock.”

Eggs.—The Texas kingfisher lays three to six eggs, but five seems to be the commonest number. These vary in shape from oval to elliptical-oval; the shell is smooth and thin; some show little or no gloss and others are quite glossy; the color is pure white. The measurements of 64 eggs average 24.36 by 19.23 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extreme measures 26.4 by 20.3, 24.1 by 20.7, 22.3 by 19.3, and 23.8 by 17.5 millimeters.

Young.—The second nest that Mr. Skutch found contained five “pink-skinned, blind, and totally naked nestlings,” which “like those of the larger species, had undershot bills and heel callosities.” He visited this nest 18 days later and found that the young, which were not more than 25 days old, “could flutter just a few feet. One flew into the river, where she spread her wings on the surface and headed for the shore. I threw her into the shallow water again, and again she turned unerringly toward the marginal rocks, beating her wings on the surface until she gained a footing. The following morning I placed them on the shore for a photograph, but two found their wings and easily traversed the 50-foot channel, flying low above the surface. The power of flight had come to them almost overnight.

“One evening early in June, after the sun had fallen behind the bordering fringe of willow trees, I was resting on a log stranded on the flood plain of the river, when a young green kingfisher flew upstream, calling cheep at intervals, and perched on a pile of brushwood almost in front of the burrow in which it was hatched. Presently its father came flying downstream, with a small minnow in his bill, and perched on the same pile of brushwood, not far from the other. The young bird came toward him, as if to receive the fish, but the other raised his wings above his back to forfend it. The youngster took this as a hint to remain aloof and perched at a little distance. Not satisfied with the interval that remained between them, the male darted at the young bird, which retreated a few feet. Several times it started to approach its father, but each time was warned to remain away by the spread wings, a very picturesque attitude. Several times, too, the bird with the fish drove at the applicant for it and finally, still holding the fish in his bill, chased it down the stream and out of sight. The young kingfisher had been out of the nest 29 days and must now at least learn to dive for its own fish.”

Plumages.—The young kingfishers are hatched naked and blind, as described above, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. A young male, taken on August 21, fully grown and fully fledged in juvenal plumage, is much like the adult female; the rich brown pectoral band of the adult male is only faintly indicated but is replaced by a band of greenish-black spots; and there is more black spotting on the flanks than in the adult male. Apparently there is a gradual change toward maturity during the first year, for October, February, and April birds show a gradual increase in the rufous band.

The youngest female I have seen, taken on June 8, is much like the adult female, but the pectoral band of greenish black spots is lacking, or nearly so, the under parts being nearly immaculate. These spots, which are more in the form of broad streaks than in transverse spots, increase with age to form one complete and one nearly complete band in the oldest birds. The observations made by Mr. Skutch on the brood of young that he studied agree substantially with the above.

I have no data on the molts, but Mr. van Rossem (1938) says that “the annual molt * * * takes place in the fall, but the definite time is not known.”

Food.—The food mentioned by Mr. Skutch (MS.) consisted of small minnows. Mr. Simmons (1925) says that this kingfisher is a “business-like little fisherman, perching atop a stick or stake in the water or on a low branch overhanging low water”; it “frequently flies back and forth over the water, hunting for small fish.” It is “often driven off feeding-grounds by the larger Belted Kingfisher, with which it is sometimes found.”

Voice.—Mr. Simmons (1925) says that the voice of the Texas kingfisher is a “rather sharp, rattling twitter, uttered on the wing; quite different from and shriller than the loud, harsh rattle of the Belted Kingfisher.” Mr. Skutch refers to the flight note as cheep, and the call or alarm note as tick tick tick.

Field marks.—This is such a small kingfisher that it could hardly be mistaken for anything else within its range. Its upper parts are dark, glossy green, and spotted with white, and it has no occipital crest. The under parts are white, with a rufous pectoral band on the male and a ring of black spots across the breast of the female.

Enemies.—The first set of eggs that Mr. Skutch found failed to hatch, as they were destroyed by ants. He writes (MS.): “Opening the burrow, I found it swarming with myriads of small, amber ‘fire ants,’ a scourge to man and beast alike. Invading the nest, they had worried the birds until they fidgeted on their eggs and cracked them; then they had worked into the cracks and begun to eat the embryos. I had cleaned them out the previous evening, but all to no avail. The nest was completely ruined. That same morning they had attacked and killed three young woodpeckers in their nest in a dead stub standing a few paces from the kingfishers’ burrow. In the humid coastal regions, ants are one of the principal enemies, if not actually the chief enemy, of nesting birds. I have found more eggs and nestlings destroyed by them than by all other known agents combined.”

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Southern Texas, Mexico, and Central and South America; casual in southern Arizona; apparently a nonmigratory species.

The range of the green kingfisher extends north to Sinaloa (Mazatlan); Durango (Rio Sestin); southern Texas (Turtle Creek and New Braunfels); Quintana Roo (Xcopan); eastern Nicaragua (Pis Pis River); northern Colombia (Santa Marta and Bonda); northern Venezuela (La Guaira); British Guiana (Potaro Landing and Bartica); Surinam (Paramaribo); and northern Brazil (Quixada). East to Brazil (Quixada, Rio Taquarussu, and Goyaz); and Uruguay (Santa Elena). South to southern Uruguay (Santa Elena); and central Argentina (Santa Elena, San Jose, and Tucuman). West to northwestern Argentina (Tucuman); Bolivia (San Jose); Peru (La Merced and the Ucayale River); Ecuador (Vinces); western Colombia (Tumaco, Cali, and Rio Frio); Panama (Sapo Mountains, Gatun, and the Chagres River); western Guatemala (Duenas, and Lake Atitlan); Oaxaca (Juchatengo); Nayarit (San Blas); and Sinaloa (Escuinapa, and Mazatlan).

The subspecies, known as Chloroceryle americanus septentrionalis, is the only form to enter the United States. It ranges southward from Texas to Yucatan.

Casual records.—A specimen was taken at Decatur, Tex., north of the normal range in this State, on January 3, 1889. Dr. Elliott Coues reported seeing this species in September 1865 at points on the Colorado River, Ariz., between Forts Mohave and Yuma, and one was taken on the San Pedro River near Fairbanks on February 13, 1910. One was collected on September 8, 1893, at Cajon Bonito Creek, Sonora, a few miles south of the New Mexico line. One was taken on the Santa Cruz River, Ariz., on October 1, 1938.

Egg dates.—Mexico: 24 records, March 5 to June 13; 12 records, March 12 to April 19, indicating the height of the season.

Texas: 4 records, April 11 to June 15.

Order CAPRIMULGIFORMES

Family CAPRIMULGIDAE: Goatsuckers

ANTROSTOMUS CAROLINENSIS (Gmelin)

CHUCK-WILL’S-WIDOW

Plates 18–20

HABITS

Contributed by Alexander Sprunt, Jr.

Dusk falls gently over the salt marshes, which reach out from a shoreline where moss-bannered live oaks and stately pines rustle softly in the late March breeze. A faint fragrance of jessamine hangs in the air; the sleepy note of a cardinal echoes from a cassina thicket, while atop a tall palmetto a mockingbird salutes the coming night with a burst of melody. Silence comes and the stars appear, glinting in golden splendor through the purple gloom.

Suddenly through the air comes another sound, a sharp, clear-cut, insistent chant. Splitting the silences, it strikes clappingly upon one’s ears, ringing with startling emphasis, unmistakable, thrilling and welcome. The first chuck-will’s-widow has returned to the Carolina low country, and spring is definitely back again!

There is something about nocturnal birds that fascinate one strangely. Doubtless the cloak of darkness that shrouds their movements and activities has a great deal to do with it. One cannot but wonder at their comings and goings; how they pursue their hunting amid the gloom. Their voices too lend much to the fascination, for the notes seem a part of the night itself, just as the bodies of the birds themselves seem more like detached and living particles of darkness than of flesh and feathers.

All my life I have lived amid the haunts of some of these furtive kindred of the dusk, but the chuck-will’s-widow above all seems to typify the mystery of the night and invests it with a sense of intangible yet satisfying tranquillity. It has always seemed to me that those beautiful lines, written of the cuckoo, might be even more applicable to the chuck-will’s-widow, for, in truth, much of the time it does not seem a bird at all, but simply “a wandering voice.” Without brilliant plumage or grace of form, it nevertheless possesses undoubted character, and long acquaintance with the bird only increases the interest that is bound to be aroused in any study of its life and habits.

Spring.—Generally speaking, the chuck-will’s-widow arrives in the South in March. There is some indication that a few birds spend the winter in southern Florida for C. J. Pennock (MS.) has stated that “in the Charlotte Harbor district a few at least appear to winter. February 26, 1926, one heard calling; February 24, 1927, while camping, we heard one.” Arthur H. Howell (1932) states that it “winters in small numbers” and gives December and February dates. R. J. Longstreet’s opinion (1930) is that “the chuck-will’s-widow is a summer resident in north Florida and a permanent resident in south Florida.” Audubon considered the species a permanent resident in the State, and his idea was, according to Allen (1871), confirmed by “old residents,” though he himself states it “is not observed till about the first of March.” I am obliged to spend portions of every winter month in Florida, being constantly in the field throughout the southern Everglades and the Keys, but it so happens that I have yet to find the chuck-will’s-widow during this season. The wintering population is undoubtedly small and scattered.

It reaches north-central Florida about March 18 (D. J. Nicholson, MS.) and appears in the coastal districts of southern Georgia a few days later (T. D. Perry, MS.). In South Carolina, about Charleston, it arrives anywhere from the third week in March to the first week of April. The males always arrive first, followed in a few days by the females.

Courtship.—Little time is lost by the chuck-will’s-widow, after its arrival from its winter home, in seeking a mate. Almost at once it undertakes the search, and it is at such times that the observer has an opportunity to see them actively in daylight. The courtship performance is an interesting one and, all things considered, is not difficult to observe. The outstanding characteristic is the strutting pomposity of the male. He sidles up to the watching female, his wings droop, the tail is widely spread, and he swells and swells until it really seems that the limit of inflation is reached and another fraction of distention would cause him to disintegrate like a bursting bomb. Various vocal efforts are indulged in meanwhile, accompanied by quick, jerky motions. Audubon (1840) has compared this phase of the proceedings to that of the domestic cock pigeon, while Arthur T. Wayne (1910) likened it to a turkey gobbler’s antics. This latter has always seemed to me most apt, for not only does the seemingly endless inflation remind one vividly of the turkey, but the motions also suggest this bird.

After this period of intense and apparently exhausting display, a space of calm and quiet pervades the pair should the male have been successful in his suit, and he perches placidly beside her.

Nesting.—No semblance of a nest is constructed. The eggs are placed on the ground upon a carpet of dead leaves, and the sitting bird constitutes one of the finest examples of protective coloration that nature affords. Such dependence is placed in it that the closest approach is possible, and the bird flushes only when nearly trodden on. The mottling of the plumage is exactly like that of the variegated background of leaves, sun splashes, and shadow, and one may look directly at the bird without seeing it. Once the bird is flushed, however, it is perfectly easy to see the eggs, for they then stand out like huge pearls against the leaves, not having the similarity to the ground that characterizes the eggs of the nighthawk.

Mixed oak and pine woods are usually the nesting haunt of the chuck. In the large live-oak groves, which occur over so much of the plantation country of the South, the species is abundant and shows a remarkable tendency to place the eggs in nearly the same spot year after year. As a rule there is little if any undergrowth about the eggs. When under the pines, this would not be expected, and in the oak groves the ground is always covered by a veritable carpet of leaves, through which no undergrowth appears. Thus the eggs can be seen from a considerable distance should the bird be off them.

On May 8, 1926, I found two eggs on Folly Island, S. C., lying upon pine needles. Marking the spot accurately I returned the next year and on May 12, 1927, found two eggs within 5 feet of the spot used previously.

M. G. Vaiden (MS.) writes from Rosedale, Miss., that he discovered a set of eggs on May 1, 1911. Twelve years later, on April 27, 1923, he returned to the same locality and found two eggs within 10 feet of the same spot! He states that the “trees were larger, the hillside washed into gullies, but otherwise about as formerly.”

Walter Colvin (MS.), of Arkansas City, Kans., reports the first nesting of the species in that State, two eggs having been found in May 1923, near Arkansas City, Cowley County. Another nest was discovered the following year (1924) also in May. Probably the chuck had been nesting there for some time previous and was also discovered in Miami County, by Mr. Colvin’s son John, in 1929.

Nesting observations from a variety of sources indicate that the chuck raises but one brood. However, if the eggs are taken, the bird will lay again and again until young are hatched. The late Arthur T. Wayne, of Mount Pleasant, S. C., once took in succession three sets from a pair near his home, and a fourth was laid, incubated, and hatched.

The chuck brooks no tampering with the eggs whatever. If they are handled, or as much as touched in some cases, the bird removes them to what is considered a safer locality. This habit was noted long ago and gave rise to much dispute and speculation as to the method employed in the transportation. It has been definitely proved that the bird takes them in the mouth. Audubon (1840) describes it so well that his account is given herewith:

When the Chuck-will’s-widow, either male or female (for each sits alternately) has discovered that the eggs have been touched, it ruffles its feathers and appears extremely dejected for a minute or two, after which it emits a low murmuring cry, scarcely audible at a distance of more than eighteen or twenty yards. At this time the other parent reaches the spot, flying so low over the ground that I thought its little feet must have touched it, as it skimmed along, and after a few low notes and some gesticulations, all indicative of great distress, takes an egg in its large mouth, the other bird doing the same, when they would fly off together, skimming closely over the ground, until they disappeared among the branches and trees. But to what distance they remove the eggs, I have never been able to ascertain; nor have I ever had an opportunity of witnessing the removal of the young. Should a person, coming upon the nest when the bird is sitting, refrain from touching the eggs, the bird returns to them and sits as before. This fact I have also ascertained by observations.

The first “apparent” recorded instance of the occurrence and nesting of the chuck in Ohio is recorded by E. S. Thomas (1932) and dated May 14, 1932. On May 21, 1932, the nest and two eggs were found and the female, with two eggs, was collected for the Ohio State Museum.

My earliest nesting record for South Carolina was made on April 13, this being nearly two weeks in advance of the next nearest date. The eggs are laid somewhat sooner than usual in forward seasons, the above record being an illustration of such an instance.

Eggs.—[Author’s note: The chuck-will’s-widow regularly lays two eggs, which are between oval and elliptical-oval and usually moderately glossy. Major Bendire (1895) considered these eggs as “among the handsomest found in the United States.” I cannot do better than to quote his description of them, as follows:

The ground color of these eggs is of such a subtle tint that it is almost impossible to describe it accurately; it varies from a rich cream, with a faint pinkish suffusion, to a pale cream, and more rarely to pure white. They are in most cases more or less profusely blotched, marbled, and spotted with different shades of brown, tawny, fawn, and Isabel-color, underlaid and mixed with lighter shades of ecru drab, lavender, pearl gray, and pale heliotrope purple. In an occasional specimen some of the markings take the shape of irregular lines and tracings, like those of the Grackles; in others they are fine and minute, obscuring the ground color to some extent. In some specimens the darker shades predominate; in others, the lighter; in fact, there is an endless variation in the style of markings, but in the entire series there is not a single specimen which is not perceptibly marked.

The measurements of 54 eggs average 35.56 by 25.57 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 40 by 27.5, 38.1 by 28.2, 32.9 by 25.1, and 36.2 by 23.1 millimeters].

Young.—Some notes of unusual interest in regard to the behavior of the adult at the nest, as well as the actions of the young birds, have been sent me by Herbert L. Stoddard, of Thomasville, Ga. These are transcribed herewith, and in the general lack of such knowledge they serve to illuminate something of the home life of this interesting species:

“April 30 (1928), 7 a. m.: One egg has hatched and the chick is a queer little mite covered with a yellow-ochre down, and hops about like a frog in a very lively manner. When he is uncomfortably hot or chilled he gives a plaintive little pipe that can be heard about 20 feet.

“May 1: Other chick hatched out this morning or during the night and eggshells were gone.

“May 3: Chicks growing fast but still being brooded in same spot. Mother goes to sleep on a fence post after flushing, but as soon as chicks start to squeal from the heat, she becomes frantic and will nearly fly into my face. I bother her a few minutes at 3 p. m. each day, as I chase her well away, then duck into the blind and take a few feet of film as she comes back to the nest. Not much action, however, and she is a wise fowl. She knows perfectly when I am in the blind!

“May 6: Found the nest spot empty today at noon but finally located the old bird (she has two patches of albinistic feathers in center of upper breast, so I know it’s the same individual that performed the incubation) brooding her two chicks about 30 feet south. Their eyes have been open from the first but are now a little deeper in color and are always half closed like those of the adult in daytime.

“May 13: Have kept in rather close touch with the chuck-will’s-widow family recently. They are living under a growth of sparkleberry shrubs and have lived here within a radius of 6 feet for the last ten days.

“The place is pretty well marked by their mourning-dovelike excrement. When disturbed, the chicks hop off with elevated wings in a ‘mechanical toy’ sort of way. That is, their progress is marked by a series of rapid, toadlike hops until they are ‘run down’ (usually in 30 or 40 feet). The wings serve as balances.

“The chicks have a little complaining whine that brings the mother in frantic haste. She flies noiselessly about, every now and then lying on the ground with her wings widely spread and reached forward, with the primaries pressed to the ground. In this queer position, she beats them a bit and opens and shuts her huge mouth, exhaling air audibly as she does so and occasionally uttering the queer, froglike croak. Altogether an odd performance. No evidence of a mate has been seen about this location.”

Plumages.—[Author’s note: The young chick is completely covered with long, soft, silky down; on the upper parts the color varies from “ochraceous-tawny” or “light ochraceous-buff” on the head to “tawny” on the back; on the lower surface the color grades from “ochraceous-tawny” on the chest to “light ochraceous-buff” on the throat and belly.

The growth of the juvenal plumage, in which the sexes are alike, is rapid. Ridgway (1914) describes it very well as follows: “Similar to the adult female in ‘pattern’ and coloration of tail, primaries, and primary coverts, but otherwise different; scapulars and middle wing-coverts ochraceous-buff, irregularly barred with black; pileum more grayish, with small spots, instead of streaks, of black; under parts barred with black on a light brownish buffy ground, without vermiculations, mottling, or spots, and band across lower throat indistinct or obsolete.”

This plumage is worn but a short time, as a partial molt into a first winter plumage begins in July; I have seen a specimen that had nearly completed this molt on August 2; this plumage closely resembles that of the adult female, as the juvenal wings and tail are retained; I can find no evidence of a spring molt. Young birds apparently retain the first winter plumage, including the juvenal wings and tail, until the following summer; I have seen birds in this plumage during winter and as late as May in spring.

Both adults and young have a complete annual molt, mainly in July and August. At this first postnuptial molt young birds become practically indistinguishable from adults, and the sexes become differentiated. Young birds in fresh fall plumage are darker and more richly colored than adults, with more “ochraceous-tawny”; the colors have faded some by spring.

Adults have two recognizable color phases, a tawny phase, in which the ground color of the two central rectrices varies from “ochraceous-buff” to “ochraceous-tawny”, with deeper ochraceous or buffy colors in the scapulars and wing coverts; and a gray phase, in which the ground color of the two central rectrices is pale buff, or pale grayish buff, and the scapulars and wing coverts are paler and grayer.]

Food.—The chuck-will’s-widow, like its family relatives, is an insect eater par excellence. The semitropical nature of much of its range is highly conducive to an abundance of insects and other night-flying creatures that are the bulk and mainstay of its diet. The mouth of the chuck is enormous, a characteristic of the goatsucker tribe, and is provided with bristles that act as a sort of additional trap. The widely open mouth is as much as 2 inches at the greatest breadth.

Prey is secured at low elevations, often only a few feet from the ground. The bird works the edges of woodlands bordering open fields and often makes sallies over the latter. The flight is silent, and the birds seem to be no more than gigantic moths. Beetles, “flying ants,” and moths make up a large bulk of the food in many localities. Small birds have frequently been found in the stomachs of this species. While seemingly incongruous, this is, after all, not difficult to understand when the conditions are considered. Many observers have concluded that this type of stomach content is taken by mistake; that the small, fluttering bird, confused by the darkness, is taken for a moth and snapped up by the cruising chuck, of course being swallowed whole.

An alternative theory exists, however, and, if true, the bird-taking habit would be removed from the realm of the accidental and fall into purposeful, predatory effort. The late Edward H. Forbush pointed out that the “goatsuckers show an anatomical affinity to the owls. They have similar, soft plumage, noiseless flight, large eyes and nocturnal vision.” It is possible that, with this structural relationship, there are other phases of likeness between the chuck and the owls. It is the largest of the goatsuckers that occur in this country, and the other representatives of the family do not seem to indulge in small bird prey. Doubtless this is because of their considerably smaller mouths, but whatever the reason the chuck remains as the outstanding example of this procedure.

That this habit is certainly not accidental sometimes is definitely proved by the observation recorded by Gerald Thayer (1899) in which he relates the instance of a chuck-will’s-widow pursuing and catching warblers near a ship off the Carolina coast. Hummingbirds, swallows, sparrows, and warblers have been among those birds found in the stomachs of the chuck, and the frequency with which this occurs lends color to the supposition that it is more intentional than accidental. More research is necessary on this subject.

Even granting the truth of it, the economic status of the chuck is on the right side of the ledger and the great percentage of its activities are beneficial, for the noxious insects which it destroys are numerous. Miss Phoebe Knappen, of the United States Biological Survey, in answer to a request of the writer has very kindly furnished a summary of specific results in the stomach analysis carried out on this species in the laboratories of that Bureau. A full stomach from Oklahoma, without date and therefore not included in the tabulation below, contained the following: Dendroica (sp.), 70 percent; Coleoptera (Calasoma, Harpalus, Carabidae, Ligyrus, Strategus, Scarabaeidae), 22 percent; Orthoptera (Schistocerca, Nesconocephalus), 8 percent.

The remarkable percentage of bird remains shown by this stomach would seem a great argument for the support of predation by purpose. Seventy percent of the total food among the wood warblers! However, it seems also to be a most exceptional case, for nothing that even approaches it is found in the list below, which embraces a range of 45 stomachs from five States and one Canadian Province. The entire amount of the stomachs listed contained the remains of but two birds!

With reference to the Oklahoma stomach, I wonder whether there might be a seasonal variation in the bird-taking propensities of the chuck-will’s-widow in relation to migration. It would appear reasonable to believe that when there is high activity among birds traveling through a given area, such as would take place in the spring migration, the chucks of that locality would have greater opportunity in securing them. One would not have to incline to the predatory theory to accept this, for if there are a great many small birds passing through an area for a few weeks, the chucks in their night hunting would blunder across more birds than would be the case later in the season. If the take is accidental, a higher percentage of accidents would then occur. If, on the other hand, the take is deliberate, then the chances of indulging that habit would be greater and would fall off later in the season. So, whatever impulse governs the matter, the migrations would result in more birds appearing in the diet. Unfortunately, the Oklahoma stomach was undated, so it is impossible to ascertain whether the bird secured its high percentage during a migration or not, but I incline to the belief that it was a spring specimen.

To return to the analysis, Miss Knappen states: “The other 45 stomachs taken in March (2), April (31), May (11), and November (1) were collected in Florida (37), Georgia (1), Mississippi (2), North Carolina (1), Ontario (1), and Texas (3). The annual percentages of different items in the food, which was entirely animal, equal: Carabidae, 3.64; Phyllophaga, 32.98; other Scarabaeidae, 25.28; Cerambycidae, 4.49; Elateridae, 1.34; other Coleoptera, 5.13; Lepidoptera (moths), 12.36; Odonata, 4.63; Aves, 7.21; and miscellaneous animals, 2.85.

“The genera most persistently eaten were Phyllophaga (May beetles) and Anomala. The birds consumed were 1 Dendroica palmarum and 1 Helminthophila sp., while the miscellaneous bracket includes various bugs, flies, a bivalve, and other animal material.”

The insect content of these 45 stomachs totals more than 70 percent in but three classes (Phyllophaga, Scarabaeidae, and Lepidoptera) and other kinds make up considerably more than that. Birds are represented by only 7.21 percent, and both victims were warblers. One cannot but wonder at the single “bivalve,” an item that would certainly not occur to most students as being connected with a chuck’s diet.

Behavior.—Being as close kin to the whippoorwill as the chuck is, it cannot be expected that its habits will vary extensively. Inactive by day and a persistent hunter by night, it fulfills the usual characteristics pertaining to the family. Sitting motionless on a mossy log, a branch of some forest tree, or ensconced within a natural cavity, it dozes away the daylight hours. Some observers have found it sleeping in company with bats, in an obscure hollow. I have never found the chuck among such company, all my daylight observations being connected with the bird’s occupancy of some low limb, or on the ground itself.

When flushed, it rises with easy, fitful wafts of silent wings, alternating the beats with periods of sailing. Frequently it describes a curve and swings back near the spot from which it was flushed. Fairly close approach is allowed, even after the bird has been disturbed and alighted again. Doubtless it puts a great deal of dependence upon the wonderfully protective coloration of the plumage.

In the Carolina low country the chuck is very fond of roosting in the sandy roads so characteristic of the rural districts. Passing along at dusk, one may see the reflection of the eyes plainly in the glare of a car’s headlights. At times a roosting bird is disturbed under these conditions by day, and I have had them flush and come directly at the car, swerving only slightly aside to pass. One bird on Bulls Island, S. C., was flushed two or three times in an hour, as we had occasion to pass the same spot often, and once it flew by so closely that an extended arm might have touched it. This habit of frequenting the sand roads is shared by the whippoorwill when it is present in coastal Carolina during the winter months.

Little or no distinction is made between these two birds in much of their range. The uninformed observer takes it for granted that any night bird that calls, except an owl, is a whippoorwill, and this seems the more strange in a section where the chuck is abundant and the whippoorwill comparatively uncommon, as in coastal Carolina. The latter calls but rarely during its winter sojourn in the Charleston area; indeed, I have heard it but twice in all my years of ornithological study. One of these instances was in January, the other early in March. When the whippoorwill is present in this area, the chuck is not, for the former leaves before the latter appears from the south. In spite of this fact and the overwhelming evidence of the chuck’s presence and comparative absence of that of the whippoorwill, the people of the low-country are far more familiar with the name of the latter and credit the call of the chuck to the other bird.

The eyes of the chuck-will’s-widow reflect light admirably. Some years ago E. B. Chamberlain, of the Charleston Museum, and I carried out a series of experiments in “jack-lighting” amid the woods of Cumberland Island, Ga. It was a revelation in many ways. The night woods were literally twinkling and sparkling with eyes! The ground and low bushes gleamed with hundreds of points of light from the eyes of spiders; the lagoons reflected the ruby-red of many alligators, while here and there along the bank a wandering raccoon stared into the light beam or a trotting gray fox paused to sniff, one foreleg upraised like a pointer. Florida screech owls were seen perched atop low stumps, hunched and motionless, and although we could work up to within 3 feet of them, the take-off when it occurred was so utterly noiseless that not a whisper of sound ensued at even that close range. Dozens of deer were seen, their eyes, of course, reflecting the light perfectly, and even grazing horses and cows along the edges of the lagoons were as plainly noted.

Now and then a very large pair of eyes close to the ground shone out. Coming closer, we could see a chuck, sitting like a stone, staring rigidly into the light. While one of us held the light, the other worked around to the side and came up on the bird from behind, and reaching out could pick up the staring bird with ease. We examined several in this way, while they uttered a hissing note of fear or anger. The birds struggled strongly while held and were very difficult to quiet.

Though sharing with the other goatsuckers the characteristic habit of perching lengthwise, the chuck occasionally departs from custom and proves the ancient adage that exceptions make the rule. N. B. Moore (MS.) writes that he has seen it perch directly across a branch when the latter is an inch or more in diameter. He once “saw one perch on a greenbrier one-quarter inch in diameter as cleverly as any bird, though it sank suddenly under its weight for 7 or 8 inches. The bird remained on it for 10 or 15 minutes.” It is likely that the chuck indulges in this more than one would ordinarily suppose. I have seen it but once, when a bird was flushed in daylight and flew to a small, gnarled oak, where it alighted among the outer twigs, perching distinctly crosswise. It had two young in the near vicinity.

In the reference already made above to Thayer’s (1899) account of this species capturing warblers on a ship off the South Carolina coast, he noted that, on shipboard, the bird perched crosswise on the rigging at times. Another remarkable character was that this bird was seen, on flights out from the ship, actually to alight on the surface of the ocean! This is certainly phenomenal and constitutes behavior that is utterly at variance with the bird’s ordinary habits. One more instance of crosswise perching is noted by W. S. Long (1935); he saw a specimen near Lawrence, Kans., that indulged in this posture.

The chuck-will’s-widow frequently roosts in the same spot day after day, and one may be fairly certain of surprising a bird regularly when once the roosting area is located. During migrations it occasionally is found in rather extraordinary situations, one of the most striking of these being noted by J. M. McBride (1933), of New Orleans. He writes that he watched one for a week, September 14 to 21, 1933, occupy an unprotected branch of a hackberry tree just even with his second-floor window. It was to be seen daily on this branch from 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. His house was in the heart of the residential district of New Orleans.

Voice.—There is no doubt that the voice of the chuck-will’s-widow is its most interesting and outstanding characteristic. Indeed, it is the one thing that many ever know of the species. It is a bird easily heard but comparatively seldom seen; therefore, though the call may be a nightly sound throughout the summer, the author may be utterly unknown to many by sight. However, no one who lives within the range of the chuck can have failed to listen to the notes perforce, and only a deaf person can fail to be aware of its presence. Though the specific name of “vociferous” has been applied to the whippoorwill, it is equally true of the chuck-will’s-widow, if not more so, but the generic name of the latter is well chosen, for the mouth is certainly “cavelike.”

The call of this species is well deserving of comment, particularly in view of the fact that there seems to be so much confusion about it in the recent literature. Why this difference of opinion should exist, and why certain positive statements have been made, are sources of wonder to me and to others who know the voice of the chuck intimately. How anyone could listen for only a few minutes to the call and then say that “the song of the chuck-will’s-widow is less vigorous than that of the whippoorwill; it consists of three notes ... with a slight accent on the first syllable” is beyond my comprehension. And yet more than one ornithologist has so stated. It seems significant that all those so describing it are northerners, that they know the chuck only by reason of short southern trips of a few days or weeks. Or, perhaps, they take the opinion of others who have as little information as themselves. If their experience with this bird covered any extended period, they could hardly fall into such error.

The call of the chuck-will’s-widow is distinctly 4-syllabled (some observers say five at times), and therein lies one of the marked differences between it and the whippoorwill, which does have a 3-syllabled call. The accent is not on the first but on the third syllable; in other words, on the “wid” of widow. Few birds “say” their names as plainly. The chuck is uttered on a lower tone than the rest but is distinctly audible at 300 yards or more. At some distance one might be excused for thinking the call 3-syllabled, for it may sound like will’s-widow, but on still nights the first syllable is plainly heard even across broad bodies of water, as occur over much of the southern coast region.

The notes are not limited entirely to the dusk of evening or night. The bird sometimes calls in full daylight, either on cloudy or bright days, and sometimes during rains. I have heard it at 1 p. m. on a bright, clear day. It is, of course, not the rule any more than is the cross perching sometimes indulged in, but it certainly occurs. However, it is during late evening and all through the night that the chuck really performs, and it sometimes calls through the entire period. In localities favored by the species, several birds may be calling at once, which results in a jumble and overlapping of notes. Herbert L. Stoddard writes that, never having heard a chuck-will’s-widow calling in the daytime, he was “greatly surprised to hear two calling back and forth at 11:30 a. m. today (May 25, 1928). It was crystal clear and the sun was hot, but these two called over 5 minutes, exactly as they do in the nighttime.”

In rapidity and frequency, there is much variation. A bird may utter a very few calls or very many. I have counted individual calls many times, and there seems to be no established custom or sequence. The usual interval between the notes is about 2½ seconds, when the bird is doing a string of them. I counted the calls of a bird just outside my window one night and it ran off 111 without “drawing breath” other than the short spacing between each, 2½ seconds. The calls were uttered at the rate of 25 a minute, this series taking about 4½ minutes. One of my longest counts is 176 calls successively uttered without a break. E. S. Dingle tells me that he has counted 300 consecutive calls. On the night of June 2, 1939, at my home in St. Andrews Parish, Charleston, I heard a chuck that beat anything I have encountered yet. I had gone to bed; the night was warm and I was lying near a window, when a chuck started up about 50 yards away in one of the live oaks in my yard. I began counting almost automatically, and kept it up, idly wondering whether it would reach my former record. It did, and then some. I continued to count, and count. Finally, I got up and sat by the window, in order not to miss any of it. The calls were perfectly continuous, and uttered at the usual rate, although twice there was a slight break in perhaps as much as a second’s lateness between them. The bird shifted its perch twice, moving perhaps a few yards each time, but did not stop calling. The total was eight hundred and thirty-four calls (834).

The notes are clear-cut, insistent, and sharply enunciated with the exception of the first syllable. There is a ringing quality about them that is very striking, and one gets the impression of full-voiced effort. The head is moved noticeably when the call is uttered, and doubtless considerable muscular effort is put forth. Some writers have termed the notes “doleful,” “monotonous,” and “melancholy,” but to me they have never seemed anything but soothing and dreamily satisfying. Charles Torrey Simpson (1920) says that the chucks “make night hideous” with their “terrible chatter.” Thus do tastes differ!

When it arrives from its winter quarters the chuck is particularly vociferous, and keeps this up until after the eggs are hatched. There is then a cessation followed by some renewed activity before departing for the south on the approach of fall. It must be very susceptible to cool weather, for it does not remain even as far south as Charleston until early in fall. The first part of September usually sees it gone, although individuals linger longer than that.

Besides the regular, self-naming call, the chuck has another note, which is not well known and is very difficult to describe. It is not the hissing sound uttered when the bird is caught or handled but is given occasionally when about its hunting. Almost entirely, if not entirely, it is a flight note; at least I have never heard it when the bird is sitting. It is inadequate to describe it as a “growl,” and yet that is the only word that seems to approach it. As one flies by in the gloom, this note is heard, and it is an eerie, utterly indefinite sound, possessing a strangely unearthly quality which impresses one with wonder that it comes from a bird.

It is seldom if ever referred to in the literature but some have remarked upon it in correspondence to the writer. The late James Henry Rice, Jr., of Brick House Plantation, Wiggins, S. C., once had an army officer visiting him who remarked on this note, but Mr. Rice himself, being very deaf, was not aware of it, though he knew the chuck well. He asks, in a letter to Mr. Bent, whether anyone has noted what he termed “that clucking sound.” I should hardly describe it as a “cluck” but it may impress some as such.

One other note has been commented on by those thoroughly familiar with the chuck. It is often given just as the bird is flushed and, like the one above, is very difficult to describe. It can be interpreted as a “croak” perhaps, and Dr. Eugene E. Murphey (MS.), of Augusta, Ga., calls it “froglike.” His allusion to it, as well as the utterances of the regular call as given in fall, is given in a communication as follows:

“I imagine most field ornithologists are familiar with the froglike croak that the bird makes when flushed, and I am inclined to believe that this note is much more apt to be sounded when the bird has been flushed from the nest. One observation may be worthy of note, namely, that I have heard the chuck-will’s-widow singing as late as September 12 in Edgefleld County, S. C. When it comes to interpreting the quality of a bird’s song, it is impossible to get away from a personal construction, which, of course, is invalid in a scientific observation, but it seemed to me that on this occasion the song was very definitely less vehement and forceful, certainly less frequently reiterated than is the case in spring; in fact, the whole thing seemed to have a querulous and uncertain character, somewhat as if he were wondering why he should be singing at this particular time of year. I endeavored to collect the bird, but the rapidly gathering darkness made it impossible for me to secure it, although I was very close to it several times and saw it take flight. Unfortunately, it chose to fly toward the darkening east rather than the west where there was still an afterglow.”

In commenting generally upon the continuity of the chuck’s calls during the early part of the season, Herbert L. Stoddard, of Thomasville, Ga., has sent me the following notes:

“Spent the entire night of April 14, 1927, on the alert in the observatory at the quail pens on lookout for an owl which has been killing quail ... a brilliant moonlight night. Chuck-will’s-widows called all night, no 5-minute period between 9 p. m. and 5 a. m. elapsing without one to eight or ten calling. They have many guttural notes of different inflection, as well as the beautiful call note, a guttural, low-toned waugh given in questioning tones being common. These notes are most frequently uttered when a pair of the birds are together.”

Fall.—The latest record in fall for the chuck-will’s-widow in lower South Carolina is September 28 (Wayne, 1910). The great majority of the birds have left some time before this date. Indeed, Dr. Murphey’s record mentioned above was a late one and impressed him markedly, as his account shows.

The earliest arrival record for the whippoorwill for the same locality is September 15, 1928 (Edward S. Dingle, MS.). The latest whippoorwill record is for April 1, 1911 (Wayne, 1910). Thus, in some exceptional years there may be the slightest overlapping of the arrival and departure of the chuck and the whippoorwill, but in the main the one has gone when the other appears, and there is usually some little interval between the sojourns of the two.

Referring to the fall migration in El Salvador, Dickey and van Rossem (1938) say: “Chuck-will’s-widows were seen as late as October 29 at Rio Goascorán, where they were more common than in any other locality. * * * Most were found well up in trees, once as high as a hundred feet above the ground, and so wild that collecting them was usually impossible. At Lake Alomega one flew from tree to tree through the high forest and at no time permitted an approach closer than about a hundred yards. * * *

“The usual daytime locations were large, horizontal branches twenty feet or so from the ground and in rather heavy woods.”

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Southeastern United States, the Caribbean region, Central America, and northern South America; casual north to Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Breeding range.—The chuck-will’s-widow breeds north to southeastern Kansas (Arkansas City and Independence); Missouri (Willard, Springfield, and Sulphur Spring); southern Illinois (Olney); southern Ohio (West Union); and southern Maryland (Point Lookout). East along the Atlantic coast to Florida (St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Royal Palm Hammock, and Man-o-war Key). East to Florida (Man-o-war Key, Fort Myers, St. Marks, Lynn Haven, and Pensacola); southern Alabama (Spring Hill); southern Louisiana (St. Francisville and Urania); and southern Texas (Houston, San Antonio, and Kerrville). West to central Texas (Kerrville, Waco, and Commerce); eastern Oklahoma (probably rarely Norman and Copan); and southeastern Kansas (Arkansas City).

Winter range.—The winter range is not clearly defined, but at this season it has been found north to Cuba (Isle of Pines and San Pablo); the Bahama Islands (Andros Island and Nassau); the Dominican Republic (Catarrey and Samana); and Puerto Rico (Arecibo, San Piedras, and Vieques Island). East to Puerto Rico (Vieques Island); and northern Colombia (Medellin). South to northern Colombia (Medellin and Antioquia); Panama (Panama City and Divala); Costa Rica (Rio Sicsola and Candelaria); Nicaragua (San Juan del Sur); El Salvador (Lake Olomega and probably Barra de Santiago); and Guatemala (Guatemala City). West to Guatemala (Guatemala City); and western Cuba (Isle of Pines). It appears that occasionally individuals may spend the winter in Florida, as one was recorded from Orlando on December 1, 1885; one from Lake Jackson on December 5, 1911; and another from the same general area on December 28, 1903. One also was seen at Chenier au Tigre, La., on January 2, 1934.

Spring migration.—Early dates of arrival are: Florida—Orlando, February 17; Melrose, March 3; Palma Sola, March 5; Daytona Beach, March 9; Merritts Island, March 12. Alabama—Prattville, April 2; Barachias, April 3; Greensboro, April 5; Montgomery, April 6. Georgia—Savannah, March 15; Cumberland, March 25; St. Marys, March 28, South Carolina—Charleston, March 12; Frogmore, March 31; Columbia, April 6. North Carolina—Raleigh, April 10; Louisburg, April 17. Virginia—Lawrenceville, April 12; Bowers Hill, April 26. Louisiana—Bains, April 2; Bayou Sara, April 11; Baton Rouge, April 18; New Orleans, April 28. Mississippi—Biloxi, April 9; Jackson, April 10. Arkansas—Delight, April 10; Monticello, April 10; Fayetteville, April 14. Tennessee—Chattanooga, April 10; Knoxville, April 12; Belfast, April 18. Kentucky—Covington, April 7; Bowling Green, April 25. Missouri—Valley Park, April 18; Monteer, April 23. Texas—Refugio County, March 17; Corpus Christi, March 18; Austin, March 21; Kerrville, April 8. Oklahoma—Tulsa, April 20. Kansas—Manhattan, April 26; Elmdale, April 29.

Fall migration.—Data on the autumn movement are not plentiful, but late dates of departure are: Oklahoma—Canadian River, September 5. Texas—Grapevine, September 20; Brownsville, October 1; Corpus Christi, October 22. Arkansas—London, September 1; Delight, October 7. Mississippi—Bay St. Louis, September 25. Louisiana—New Orleans, September 21. Virginia—Lawrenceville, August 24. North Carolina—Louisburg, September 19; Raleigh, September 21. South Carolina—Summerton, September 23; Charleston, September 28. Georgia—Athens, September 6; Savannah, September 23. Florida—College Point, October 19; Pensacola, October 21; Punta Rossa, October 30.

Casual records.—Among records of this species north of its known breeding range are several for Maryland—one heard at North Beach on June 28, 1930; one heard at Clements on August 14, 1932; a mounted specimen in the collection of the Cambridge High School, taken at Fishing Creek sometime prior to 1933; and one recorded at Laurel on May 12, 1935. A specimen was taken at New Haven, Conn., on May 17, 1889; another was captured at East Boston, Mass., on October 13, 1915; one was killed at Pictou, Nova Scotia, on October 22, 1890; one was taken at Dayton, Ohio, on May 1, 1933, one was collected on Point Pelee, Ontario, on May 19, 1906; one was taken at Indianapolis, Ind., during April or May 1908; and one was obtained at Sugar Creek, in southeastern Iowa, on June 17, 1933. There are several records for Kansas north of areas where it is known to breed, among them being a specimen collected at Wichita on June 12, 1898; one taken at Hamilton on April 30, 1912; and one obtained at Lawrence on May 4, 1935.

Egg dates.—Arkansas: 11 records, May 15 to June 26.

Florida: 53 records, March 7 to June 30; 27 records, March 20 to May 13, indicating the height of the season.

Georgia: 28 records, April 25 to June 18; 14 records, May 7 to 24.

Texas: 17 records, April 4 to June 16; 9 records, May 2 to June 5.

ANTROSTOMUS VOCIFERUS VOCIFERUS (Wilson)

EASTERN WHIPPOORWILL

Plates 21–23

HABITS

Contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler

Almost every man, woman, and child living in the wide breeding range of the whippoorwill knows the bird by name. Those who once hear it singing, reiterating its name perhaps a hundred times or more without a pause, cannot fail to realize that they are listening to a whippoorwill, but how many of this multitude who know the whippoorwill’s name ever saw the bird, or would recognize it if they did see it? Not, it may be presumed, one-tenth of 1 percent.