Page:Bird-lore Vol 04.djvu/138

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Nighthawk Notes [17

while the males occasionally flew by so close as to show their little white throats.

I found the young at noon. June 24. and that night I saw one leave the nest. Next day we went to get their picture. but they were gone. At dawn next morning I made them another call, hoping to find them at home. hut they were not where I expected, and I started away dis- appointed, when the old birds showed their anxiety by flying swiftly about me and calling out rapidly "p205. pid‘, pith [nun/t.” found the little ones within a few feet of the nest.

I returned and soon They looked like


“NOT rka'rExEn. BUT .umu' "

little gray and white downy chickens not old enouin to run. and were about as large as a newly hatched bantam; but they proclaimed by their cries that they were Nighthawks, just as the young Chickadee sometimes tells his name before he is old enough to leave his hollow stub. To make sure of them there was now only one way: They must take a bicycle ride with me to the village photographer. Their father was wait— ing for them at half past eight when I took them back, asleep on the nest but faithful still. \Vhen they were two weeks old they visited the photographer again. At this time they were five and a half inches long and spread twelve and a half inches. Their legs were nearly three inches long and so strong and muscular that they could run nearly as fast as