164 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



F. Seymour Hersey (1923) tells of a striking instance of nocturnal 

 migration when a multitude of whippoorwills arrived suddenly at 

 Lakeville, Mass., in the middle of the night. 



In 1901 [he says], on the evening of May 4, about eight o'clock, a single bird 

 was heard singing. This was the first arrival noted and no others were heard 

 that evening. At two o'clock the following morning, six hours later, I was 

 awakened by birds singing loudly everywhere. I dressed and went out and for 

 more than an hour the chorus continued. There were numbers of birds about 

 the house, on the door-step and ridge-pole, others singing in the road or from 

 the stone walls along the road side, while still others could be heard down in 

 the pastures, — often eight or ten were singing at the same instant. I walked 

 down the road for half a mile and the birds seemed equally as abundant on 

 neighbors' farms. It seems probable that the migration takes place at night 

 as these birds had just arrived. 



Courtshi'p. — Few observers have had the good fortune to watch 

 the sexual activities of the whippoorwill. One must be very near 

 the birds to see, in the semidarkness, the courtship in detail, and 

 even should we catch sight of a courting pair — a rare happening — 

 we may get but a glimpse of their actions, because, if they flit only 

 a little way back into the gloom, they are lost to view, fading into 

 the shadows. 



Frank Bolles (1912) tells of the following experience. He was 

 hidden under a "narrow fringe of spirea bushes, 2^/2 ft. high only 

 3 ft. from the stone" — a stone on which a whippoorwill sang every 

 evening. He says: 



It uttered its note about twenty or thirty times when to my astonishment 

 another whip, alighted near it, on the left (W.) end of the boulder. One or 

 two sounds like the soft popping of corn came from the new arrival, and the 

 first bird, which had ceased its call, faced west and began a strange, slow 

 dance, advancing a step at a time towards its mate, raising its body to the 

 full length of its legs at each step, thus making a sort of undulating approach. 

 The other bird remained where it alit, but seemed to be moving its body up 

 and down or else slowly pulsating its wings. The first bird, which I think 

 was the male, seemed to continue its dance entirely aroun<J the female. As 

 he passed hei", indescribable purring and popping sounds were made and one 

 of the birds flew lightly away — the 2 I think. The male resumed his first 

 position, and remained silent. Then he rose and circled in the air, catching 

 an insect I thought, for he came back at once to the spot on the rock which 

 he always covers. A moment later his mate seemed to call from below the 

 house, near the lake, and he flew, his white feathers flashing as he spread 

 his tail, and the strokes of his wings making a distinct and quite loud sound 

 as he passed close above my head. 



Henry K. Coale (1920) reporting the observation of his neighbor, 

 Moritz Boehm, says: 



On different occasions, while the male was calling, he saw the female going 

 through some peculiar antics, but in thedusk could not make out just what 

 she was doing. One evening, when he was sitting on the lower step, the birds 

 came up and performed within ten feet of him. He kept perfectly quiet. The 



