It was the most wild and desolate region we had camped in, where, if anywhere, one might expect to meet with befitting inhabitants..., but I heard only the squeak of a nighthawk flitting over. The moon in her first quarter, in the fore part of the night, setting over the bare rocky hills garnished with tall, charred, and hollow stumps or shells of trees, served to reveal the desolation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
On the 29th of April, as I was fishing ... I heard a singular rattling sound, somewhat like that of the sticks which boys play wit...h their fingers, when, looking up, I observed a very slight and graceful hawk, like a nighthawk, alternately soaring like a ripple and tumbling a rod or two over and over, showing the underside of its wings, which gleamed like a satin ribbon in the sun, or like the pearly inside of a shell. This sight reminded me of falconry and what nobleness and poetry are associated with that sport. The merlin it seemed to me it might be called: but I care not for its name. It was the most ethereal flight I had ever witnessed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »