EASTERN WHIPPOORWILL 163 



ANTROSTOMUS VOCIFERUS VOCIFERUS (Wilsoa) 

 EASTERN WHIPPOORWILL 



Plates 21-23 



HABITS 



Contributed bt Win sob Mabbett Ttleb 



Almost every man, woman, and child living in the wide breeding 

 range of the whippoorwill knows the bird by name. Those who once 

 hear it singing, reiterating its name perhaps a hundred times or 

 more without a pause, cannot fail to realize that they are listening 

 to a whippoorwill, but how many of this multitude who know the 

 whippoorwill's name ever saw the bird, or would recognize it if they 

 did see it? Not, it may be presumed, one-tenth of 1 percent. 



Yet the whippoorwill lived many long years in denser obscurity 

 still, for, playing a part behind the scenes, so to speak, its lines were 

 ascribed to another actor in the play ; it was not recognized as a bird 

 at all until the early part of the last century. Prior to this time the 

 whippoorwill was supposed to be nothing more than the voice of the 

 nighthawk, and even now in many rural districts the two birds are 

 not clearly distinguished from each other. "William Brewster (1895) 

 says: "They are still very generally regarded by country people 

 throughout New England as one and the same bird." 



Spring. — The whippoorwill starts northward from central Florida 

 in the latter part of March. This northerly movement evidently rep- 

 resents a general migration from the southern and eastern Gulf 

 States, and through them from points farther south. The bird ar- 

 rives in the latitude of Boston, Mass., late in iipril or early in May, 

 thus flying a distance of a thousand miles or more in 35 or 40 days — 

 a migration that corresponds closely, both in time of year and in 

 speed of travel, with that of the chimney swift. Of this journey 

 Wilson (1831) says: 



In their migrations north, and on their return, they probably stop a day or 

 two at some of their former stages, and do not advance in one continued flight. 

 The whip-poor-will was first heard this season [1811] on the 2d day of May, 

 in a corner of Mr. Bartram's woods, not far from the house, and for two or 

 three mornings after in the same place, where I also saw it. From this time 

 until the beginning of September, there were none of these birds to be found 

 within at least one mile of the place; though I frequently made search for 

 them. On the 4th of September, the whip-poor-will was again heard for two 

 evenings successively in the same part of the woods. I also heard several of 

 them passing, within the same week, between dusk and nine o'clock at night, 

 it being then clear moonlight. These repeated their notes three or four times, 

 and were heard no more. It is highly probable that they migrate during the 

 evening and night. 



