(_Piramidig.—Musquito-hawk._)
_Chordeiles Virginianus._
_Caprimulgus Americanus_, +Wils.+—Aud. pl. 147.
_Caprimulgus Popetue_, +Vieill.+
_Chordeiles Virginianus_, +Bon.+
[8] Length 8¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 20, tail 4, flexure 7¹⁄₁₀, rictus
¹¹⁄₁₂, tarsus ⁷⁄₁₀, middle toe ⁷⁄₁₀.
These birds are doubtless migratory, for we see nothing of them from
September to April. They probably winter with the Grey Petchary and
the Red-eyed Vireo, in Central America, as they appear with those
species about the beginning of April. We can scarcely fail to recognise
the period of their arrival; for their manners and voice are so
singular, that they force themselves upon our attention. About an hour
before the sun sets, we hear a loud, abrupt, and rapid repetition
of four or five syllables in the air above our heads, resembling
the sounds, _piramidig_, or _gi’ me a bit_, or perhaps still more,
_witta-wittawit_. On looking up we see some two or three birds,
exceedingly like swallows in figure and flight, but considerably
larger, with a conspicuous white spot on each wing. They _winnow_,
however, rather more than swallows, and more frequently depress one
or the other side; and the body and tail behind the wings is rather
longer. Their general appearance, their sudden quick doublings, their
rushing, careering flight, and their long, narrow, arcuated wings,
are so like those of swallows, that after being familiar with them,
I have often been unable to determine at the first glance, whether
a particular bird were a caprimulgus or a swallow. Like them the
Piramidig is pursuing flying insects; and though the prey, from its
great height, and probably its minute size, is invisible from the
earth, we may very often observe that it is captured, by a sudden
arresting of the career, and by the swift zigzag dodgings, or almost
stationary flutterings, that ensue. I do not think the prey is
ordinarily larger than minute diptera, hymenoptera, and coleoptera;
for I have not been able to detect anything flying where these birds
were hawking, even when their flight was sufficiently low to allow of
insects as large as a bee being distinctly seen. “Mosquito hawk,” is
one of the appellations familiarly given to the bird, and doubtless
not without ground. I am confirmed in this supposition, by the fact
that swallows, whose prey is known to be minute, are usually hawking in
the same region of the air, and in company with the Piramidigs. By the
term “company,” however, I must not be understood as implying anything
like association, which does not seem to exist even between these birds
themselves; they are usually solitary, except inasmuch as several,
hawking over the same circumscribed region, must often come into close
proximity; but this seems, in general, neither sought nor avoided; each
swoops on its own course, regardless of his momentary neighbour. Yet
the tender passion sets aside even the most recluse solitariness in any
animal; and to this I attribute it that now and then I have seen one
Piramidig following another in close and pertinacious pursuit, ever and
anon uttering its singular cry, and evidently desiring to come into
contact with, but not to strike or hurt its coy companion. I would not
assert from hence that the nuptials of this species are performed upon
the wing, because the premises are too slight to decide so important
a fact; but it is known that it is so with the European Swift, a bird
whose manners greatly resemble those of our Night-hawk.
It is when the afternoon rains of the season have descended
plentifully, that these birds are most numerous, and most vociferous;
and they continue to fly till the twilight is beginning to fade into
darkness. After this, they appear for the most part to retire, and the
strange and startling voices, that before were sounding all around
and above us, are rarely heard by the most attentive listening. A
lad informed me that when out fishing during the night, not far from
the shore, the canoe is often surrounded by bats, which make a great
noise. But my assistant, Sam, who heard the statement, assured me that
these were not bats, but Piramidigs, (with some bats, however, in the
company), and that these birds, when the moon is at or near the full,
continue on the wing through the night.[9] On dark rainy days, such as
we get sometimes in May, I have seen and heard two or three abroad even
in the middle of the day, careering just as at nightfall.
[9] I may be permitted here to record a tribute of affection to
this faithful servant, Samuel Campbell, whose name may often
appear in this work. A negro lad of about eighteen, with only the
rudiments of education, he soon approved himself a most useful
assistant by his faithfulness, his tact in learning, and then his
skill in practising, the art of preparing natural subjects, his
patience in pursuing animals, his powers of observation of facts,
and the truthfulness with which he reported them, as well as by
the accuracy of his memory with respect to species. Often and
often, when a thing has appeared to me new, I have appealed to
Sam, who on a moment’s examination would reply, “No, we took this
in such a place, or on such a day,” and I invariably found on my
return home that his memory was correct. I never knew him in the
slightest degree attempt to embellish a fact, or report more than
he had actually seen. He remained with me all the time I was in the
island, and was of great service to me. Many of the subjects of
this work were obtained by him, when I was not myself with him, and
some which I believe to be unique.
Early in the morning, before the grey dawn has peeped over the
mountain, I have heard over the pastures of Pinnock Shafton, great
numbers of these birds evidently flying low, and hawking to and fro.
Their cries were uttered in rapid succession, and resounded from all
parts of the air, though it was too dark to distinguish even such as
were apparently in near proximity. Now and again, the hollow booming
sound, like blowing into the bung-hole of a barrel, produced at the
moment of perpendicular descent, as described by Wilson, fell on my ear.
The articulations or syllables, if I may so say, which make up the
note, are usually four, but sometimes five, or six, uttered as
rapidly as they can be pronounced, and all in the same tone. The
Chuck-will’s-widow and the Whip-poor-will of the northern continent
derive these names from a rapid emission of certain sounds not very
dissimilar to those of the bird under consideration. The cry is
uttered at considerable intervals, but without anything like a regular
recurrence or periodicity.
Whither the Piramidig retires after its twilight evolutions are
performed, or where it dwells by day, I have little evidence. The first
individual that fell into my hands, however, was under the following
circumstances. One day in the beginning of September, about noon, being
with the lads shooting in Crab-pond morass, Sam called my attention to
an object on the horizontal bough of a mangrove-tree, which he could
not at all make out. I looked long at it, also, in various aspects,
and at length concluded that it was a sluggish reptile. It was lying
lengthwise on the limb, close down, the head also being laid close
on the branch, the eyes wide open, and thus it remained immovable,
though three of us were talking and pointing towards it, and walking
to and fro under it, within a few yards. The form, in this singular
posture, presented not the least likeness to that of a bird. At length
I fired at it, and it fell, a veritable Night-hawk! The reason of its
seeking safety by lying close, rather than by flight, was probably
the imperfection of its sight in the glare of day, from the enormous
size of its pupils: but the artifice showed a considerable degree of
cunning.
An intelligent person has stated to me that early in the morning,
where a perpendicular face of rock about twenty feet high rises from
the hilly pastures of Mount Edgecumbe, he has seen these birds leave
what seemed to be nests, built in the manner of some swallows, on the
side of the rock, near the top. But I strongly suspect he is mistaken
in the identity of the bird. One day, at the end of July, as I and Sam
were following Baldpate Pigeons on some very stony pasture at Pinnock
Shafton, much shaded with pimento and cedar-trees, we roused a bird
of this family, and, I think, of this species, which started from the
ground near our feet, and fluttered in an odd manner, inviting our
attention. I was aware of her object and began to search carefully
among the loose stones for a young bird, or an egg, but could discover
neither, though I have no doubt either the one or the other was not
far off. I have been told that it habitually chooses for its place
of laying, the centre of a spot where a heap has been burned off in
clearing new ground; perhaps on account of its dryness.
In some “Notes of a Year,” published in the Companion to the Jamaica
Almanack, Mr. Hill had used the term, “triangular,” in connexion
with the flight of this bird. In reply to a question of mine, on the
subject, he thus writes: “I send you a diagram of the flittings about
of the Goatsucker. It illustrates my allusion to the triangular flight
of the bird. This peculiar cutting of triangles struck my attention,
when I was watching the morning flight of some three or four
Goatsuckers, just at day-dawn, while I strolled through the pastures
of a pen in St. Andrew’s, where I was visiting. The morning twilight
had spread a clear glassy gloom over the whole cloudless expanse around
and above me; and as no direct ray shone on the woods and fields, which
lay silent and sombre beneath,—the flitting birds were seen distinctly,
like dark moving spots against the grey sky. I was struck with the
sudden shifts by triangles which they were seen to make. They never
moved very far from one to another direction, but darted backward and
forward over a space of some five hundred yards, preserving a pretty
constant horizontal traverse, over some trees in a near pasture,
whose honeyed fragrance on the morning air told that they were in
blossom. Occasionally only, they rose and sank so as suddenly to change
their elevation above the clumps of foliage. Yarrell observes that
Goatsuckers are remarkable for beating over very circumscribed spaces;
but I have not found any one who notices their cutting in and out by
triangular shifts. It is not so perceptible in the obscurity of the
evening, but in the perspicuousness of day-dawn it is plainly visible;
and I made a note of it, and dotted in the angular appearance at the
time.”
In some parts of Jamaica this bird bears the appellation, most absurdly
misapplied, of “Turtle-dove:” it is occasionally shot for the table,
being usually fat and plump. It is a very beautiful bird. The stomach,
protuberant below the _sternum_, is a large globular sac; the other
viscera are small. Of one which I dissected, shot in its evening
career, the stomach was stuffed with an amazing number of insects,
almost (if not quite) wholly consisting of small beetles of the genus
_Bostrichus_: there were probably not fewer than two hundred of these
beetles, all of one species, about a quarter of an inch long.
The primaries, which are long and narrow, have a peculiar downy
surface, like the nap of cloth, extending down the inner vanes, and
covering the outer two-thirds of their breadth; this is visible only on
the upper surface. It does not exist in our Nyctibius.
There is in my possession, presented to me by Mr. Hill with many other
interesting objects, an egg of much beauty, which, when brought to him,
was reported to be that of a Caprimulgus. It certainly belongs to this
family, but not, as I think, to this species, judging from Wilson’s
description. Its dimensions are 1²⁄₁₀ inch, by ⁸⁄₁₀, of a very regular
oval, polished, and delicately and minutely marbled with white, pale
blue grey, and faint olive.