470 Du Bois, Nesting of the Whip-poor-will. |_bct. 



injury and leading me away from the nest as rapidly as I could be 

 induced to follow. 



A search revealed the nest within a pace of the spot we had 

 marked. It contained one egg and the broken shell of another 

 which gave evidence of having hatched. Although I stooped to 

 examine the broken shell I did not see the bird that had hatched 

 from it until my companion called my attention to it. The 

 little fellow was crouched, motionless, upon the brown leaves not 

 six inches from the broken egg-shell. It was thickly clothed with 

 extremely soft, fluffy down, of uniform yellowish brown which 

 harmonized with the dead oak leaves all about it. A more com- 

 plete protective coloration would be difficult to imagine. The 

 tubular nostrils have, in the young bird, an exaggerated promi- 

 nence, and this is perhaps its most striking characteristic. 



Although the young nestling was absolutely motionless when 

 discovered, it exhibited no fear upon being taken in hand, and 

 even scrambled toward the source of sound when the writer held 

 it near his face and made a faint clucking noise with his mouth. 



There was no indication that the leaves had been arranged by 

 the parent to form a nest ; they were merely flattened down some- 

 what where the brooding bird had been sitting. The nest was 

 situated among a few saplings, with an occasional may-apple 

 growing about the spot, but there seemed to be no special attempt 

 at secreting it. The unhatched egg had the appearance of being 

 fresh but it proved to be infertile. 



Having marked the spot we left the woods, curious to know 

 whether or not the parents would remove their young to another 

 place on account of our intrusion. We returned next day and 

 found the parent bird brooding her little offspring not more than 

 three feet from the original nest. She fluttered from the spot 

 as she had done the previous day, but this time uttering a very 

 low hissing or "soughing" sound. It was upon this second day 

 that photographs of the young bird and of the parent were taken. 

 The adult was afraid of the camera and did not return to her young 

 for more than an hour after the camera had been placed. She kept 

 vigilant watch, however, at a short distance, moving about near 

 the ground with a remarkably noiseless flight but uttering a " chip " 

 or "whit" similar to that of a domestic chick. She finally perched 



