178 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



quiet country road fringed by woods and open fields, or, in a canoe, 

 are drifting down a stream flowing slowly past farmland — pastures, 

 stone walls, orchards — and if we listen, what do we hear? If it is 

 summer, the bird songs are gradually fading away as the birds fall 

 asleep, the robin chorus lessens when the light grows dim, and when 

 it is almost dark a field sparrow may sing for the last time before 

 night comes. If it is autumn we hear little bird song, only a short 

 period of chipping and clucking before the birds settle for the night, 

 and after that only the insects that will sing the night through. But 

 let us listen. Was that a whippoorwill ? Do we hear a whippoor- 

 will, or do we imagine we hear one because the scene has changed to 

 a world of shadows — the whippoorwill's world — and association has 

 brought the bird to our mind, and its song has come to our ears? 

 The song is faint and comes from far away. Perhaps we did not 

 hear it ; perhaps there was no song to hear. 



This is a peculiarity of the whippoorwill's song; it is so bound up 

 with association that we are sometimes misled. It is the same with 

 the bluebird when we listen for its song over the brown fields of 

 March. 



Field marks. — The whippoorwill and the nighthawk appear very 

 much alike when sitting either on the ground or along a horizontal 

 branch of a tree, for in such situations it is difficult to see the points 

 where the two birds differ. The whippoorwill is bristly about the 

 mouth ; the nighthawk is not. The tips of the whippoorwill's folded 

 wings do not come to the end of the rounded tail, whereas the 

 nighthawk's wings project beyond the forked tail. The whippoorwill 

 has a narrow line of white on the upper breast. The corresponding 

 mark on the nighthawk is broader and includes the throat. Perhaps 

 the best mark for diagnosis is the pale, barred sides of the night- 

 hawk. For purposes of field identification this part of the whip- 

 poorwill may be said to be unbarred. 



In the air the distinguishing mark of the nighthawk is a con- 

 spicuous spot of white in the wing. The whippoorwill lacks this 

 mark. The flight of the two birds (see above) is very different and 

 identifies them at a glance. 



The chuck-will's-widow, although similar to the whippoorwill in 

 plumage, is a much larger bird. 



Enemies. — The clearing away of a large part of the North Ameri- 

 can wilderness during the past two centuries or so has not materially 

 affected the whippoorwill ; it drove the bird back from the settlements 

 a little way, farther and farther as the towns grew in extent and 

 became the great cities of today, but at the present time, not far 

 beyond the city limits, whippoorwills find miles and miles of country 

 wild and secluded enough for their breeding purposes. Fifteen miles 



