Length: 10 inches; wings 7¾ inches.

General Appearance: A large dark bird, with a white throat, a white band across the tail, and very long wings, on each of which is a large white spot or bull’s-eye, unfortunately a target, like the white rump of the flicker.

Male: Black above, mottled with buff and white; under parts lighter (becoming whitish), barred with black; throat with a tent-shaped white patch below the very wide bill; upper breast black; tail notched, a white band extending across it near the end except on the middle tail-feathers; wing with a conspicuous area of white about half-way between the curve and tip, when outspread.

Female: Throat buff; under parts buffy; no white on the tail.

Note: A loud peeng-peeng; uttered at frequent intervals while on the wing.

Flight: Very swift, with numerous and rapid changes of direction. The bird is very active at nightfall. It makes rapid descents not unlike those made by an airplane; it has a habit of dropping “like a bolt from the blue.”

Habitat: The nighthawk is a “bird of the air” rather than of treetops or ground. It may be seen in cities flying above houses in search of its insect prey at sunset and during the night.

Nest: No nest, but two speckled eggs are laid on the ground or on a roof where they are not easily discovered. Mr. Forbush says, “The nighthawk has deposited its eggs on gravel roofs in cities for at least forty years and probably longer.”

Young: Dr. F. H. Herrick tells us that the nestlings are “clothed in down” and “look like two little flattened balls of fluffy worsted of a dark cream-color mottled with brown.”

Range: Eastern and central North America. Breeds from Manitoba, southern Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia south to northern Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia, and from eastern North Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas eastward; winters from the lowlands of South Carolina and southern parts of the Gulf States to British Honduras and Salvador.

The nighthawk is a remarkable bird. Because of its nocturnal habits, it has been regarded with superstitious awe. Erroneous ideas of it have been entertained, and it has received a name that belies it. It is not a hawk at all; it preys only on insects, not on chickens or small rodents.

Mr. W. L. McAtee writes: “Nighthawks are so expert in flight that no insects can escape them. They sweep up in their capacious mouths everything from the largest moths and dragon flies to the tiniest ants and gnats, and in this way sometimes gather most remarkable collections of insects. Several stomachs have contained fifty or more different kinds, and the numbers of individuals may run into the thousands. Nearly a fourth of the bird’s total food consists of ants.”[99] Professor Beal estimated that the stomachs of eighty-seven nighthawks which he examined “contained not less than twenty thousand ants, and these were not half of the insect contents.”[100] Mr. Forbush claims that the nighthawk “ranks next to the flicker in the destruction of ants, and it takes them when they are flying and about to propagate.”[101]

It has a fondness for fireflies, also. Dr. Herrick made careful observation of the habits of nighthawks, and the manner of feeding their young. He writes of seeing a mother-bird “loaded with fireflies.” He says: “As her great mouth opened you beheld wide jaws and throat brilliantly illuminated like a spacious apartment all aglow with electricity. She made an electrical display at every utterance of her harsh ke-ark. Then standing over her young, with raised and quivering wings, she put her bill down into his throat and pumped him full. She then tucked the little one under her breast and began to brood. She repeated the performance, after which she settled down to brood as if for the night. This young bird was fed but twice each evening between the hours of eight and nine o’clock, and always, as I believe, by the female. It is quite probable that another feeding occurs also at dawn. The male would sometimes swoop down and once he sat by the chick for ten minutes after dusk. The task of feeding was borne by the mother.”[102]