Obs. This handsome species, which is the smallest of the birds of this family yet discovered in North America, appears to be a rather common bird in the countries above mentioned. It varies in some degree from the characters of the typical species, and with a small South American bird (_A. ocellatus_), may form a distinct group. Nothing is recorded of its habits. II. GENUS CHORDEILES. Swainson, Fauna Boreali Americana, Birds, p. 496. (1831.) Bill small and weak; gape very wide, without bristles; wing long, pointed, with the first and second quills longest; tail moderate or rather long, usually emarginate; legs short, weak; tarsus usually partly covered with short feathers; toes rather long, slender; claw of the middle toe pectinated. General form stout and heavy, broad. A genus containing about six species, inhabiting North and South America, the North American species of which are less nocturnal in their habits than those of the preceding genus. 1. Chordeiles virginianus. (Brisson.) The Night Hawk. Caprimulgus virginianus. Briss., Orn., II. p. 477. (1760.) Caprimulgus popetue. Vieill., Ois. d’Am., Sept. 1, p. 56. (1807.) Caprimulgus americanus. Wilson, Am. Orn., V. p. 65. (1812.) Edwards, Birds, II. pl. 63.; Catesby, Carolina, II. Appendix, pl. 16; Vieill., Ois. d’Am., Sept. 1, pl. 24; Wilson, Am. Orn., V. pl. 40; Aud., B. of Am., pl. 147; Oct. ed., I. pl. 43; Nat. Hist. N. Y. Birds, pl. 27, fig. 60. Bill short, weak; gape very wide; wing long, pointed; first and second quills longest, and nearly equal; tail emarginate; legs short; tarsus feathered below the joint, with the tibia; bare part covered with scales; middle toe long, partially united to the outer toe by a web, and with its claw distinctly pectinated. Male.—Throat white; entire upper parts brownish black, every feather more or less mottled and spotted with ashy white and reddish fulvous, the former most conspicuous on the secondaries and wing-coverts, and the latter on the back; neck behind with an irregular collar of reddish; quills brownish-black, with a wide bar of white about their middle, forming a conspicuous transverse bar on the wing; tail feathers brownish-black, all, excepting the two central, with a wide subterminal transverse band of white, and with other irregular transverse narrow bands of ashy white; breast brownish-black, with rounded and irregular spots of ashy white and reddish fulvous; abdomen with transverse bars of ashy white and dark brown; under tail-coverts white. Female with the white stripe on the wing much narrower, and in some specimens confined to the inner-webs; white of the throat less pure, and tinged with reddish-yellow; general plumage paler, and more tinged with ashy and reddish fulvous. Dimensions. Total length, 9 to 9½ inches; wing, 7½; tail, 4½ inches.