196 HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 



a long, low w^liistle and exclaimed : " Gosh ! I've struck 

 it ; there is the stump ! move quiet, will y ou ? " And sure 

 enough the whippoorwill fluttered away from almost 

 beneath our feet. Her flight was noiseless, and she 

 alighted on the trunk of a fallen tree, which she seemed 

 to hug closely, so as to be as little in sight as possible. 

 There were two eggs in the nest — if nest it could be 

 called — as the eggs lay on the ground unprotected, save 

 by the dry leaves. They were about the size of doves' 

 eggs, w^ith Avhite ground work, delicately mottled with 

 brown, and were of peculiar form, both ends being 

 nearly alike. When we moved away from the place 

 the bird returned close to the nest, but did not take her 

 place again on the eggs until we left the j^remises. The 

 whippoorwills are very unequally distributed. In sev- 

 eral counties in the central part of the State none are to 

 be found. They seem partial to oak-timbered lands, 

 with a sprinkhng of pitch pine. One seldom finds them 

 in beech and maple woods. The whippoorwill and night 

 haw^k are often mistaken for each other, and thought by 

 many to be one and the same bird. They resemble 

 each other in form and much in color, excepting that 

 the plumage of the former is more strongly marked and 

 the tail is round, the middle quills being the longest. 



The night hawk has a white patch on the throat, and 

 white spots on each, of the five outer wing primaries, 

 making a conspicuous white bar across the middle of 

 each wing. The tail is forked like that of the swallow. 

 They are similar in many of their habits, as neither of 

 them makes a nest, but deposits two eggs on a flat sur- 



