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.