62 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER. 



The nighthawk {chordeiles virgijiiamis), 

 which is really no hawk at all, and the 

 whippoorwill {autrosto7?t7is vocifcrtis) are 

 two closely allied species of birds belong- 

 ing to the family of goat-suckers {capri- 

 mulgidce). Their generic name had its 

 origin in an old superstition in England, 

 founded on the broad, ugly beaks, cov- 

 ered with woolly bristles, which mark the 

 birds of this family. The nighthawk and 

 the whippoorwill look almost exactly 

 alike, both being brown birds, sprinkled 

 with ashy gray, as if they had fallen into 

 an ash-barrel, and it is not surprising that 

 the curiously erroneous idea should pre- 

 vail in some quarters that the two are sim- 

 ply different sexes of the same bird. 



Apart from the fact that they are both 

 nocturnal birds, however, they present the 

 most marked contrasts, both in their gen- 

 eral habits and their notes. The whip- 

 poorwill is one of the most retired of our 

 birds, inhabiting the densest forests. I 

 often hear him in the woods which line 

 Lake Quinsigamond, and I remember once 



