Both the nighthawk and the whip-poor-will belong to the goatsucker family. Did you ever hear a more ridiculous name? Eighty-five innocent birds of this tribe, found in most parts of the world, have to bear it because some careless observer may have seen one of their number flying among a herd of goats in Europe to catch [{180}] the insects on them, just as cowbirds follow our cattle; and he imagined the bird was actually drinking the goat's milk!
CHIMNEY SWIFT
There are some children, and grown-ups, too, who persist in calling this bird the chimney swallow, although it is not even remotely related to the swallow family, and its life history, as well as its anatomy, are quite different from a swallow's, as you shall see.
Down within some unused chimney, the modern babies of this soot-coloured, dark, grayish-brown bird first open their eyes. Old-fashioned swifts still nest in hollow trees or caves, but chimneys are so much more abundant and convenient, that up-to-date birds prefer them. Without stopping in their flight, the parent swifts snap off with their beaks or feet, little twigs at the ends of dead branches, and these they carry, one by one, into a chimney, gluing them against the side until they have finished an almost flat, shelf-like, lattice cradle. Where do they get their glue? Only during the nesting season do certain glands in their mouths flow a brownish fluid that quickly gums and hardens when exposed to the air. After nursery duties have ended, the gland shrinks from disuse.
A chimney swift at rest.
Hummingbird pumping food into her babies' crops.
Twin rubythroats.