98 BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS 



their calls. They are rarely heard later than ten 

 o'clock. Then at daybreak they take up the 

 tale again, whipping poor Will till one pities 

 him. One April morning between three and four 

 o'clock, hearing one strike up near my window, 

 I began counting its calls. My neighbor had told 

 me he had heard one call over two hundred times 

 without a break, which seemed to me a big story. 

 But I have a much bigger one to tell. This bird 

 actually laid upon the back of poor Will one 

 thousand and eighty-eight blows, with only a 

 barely perceptible pause here and there, as if to 

 catch its breath. Then it stopped about half 

 a minute and began again, uttering this time 

 three hundred and ninety calls, when it paused, 

 flew a little farther away, took up the tale once 

 more, and continued till I fell asleep. 



By day the whip-poor-will apparently sits mo- 

 tionless upon the ground. A few times in my 

 walks through the woods I have started one up 

 from almost under my feet. On such occasions 

 the bird's movements suggest those of a bat ; its 

 wings make no noise, and it wavers about in 

 an uncertain manner, and quickly drops to the 

 ground again. One June day we flushed an old 

 one with her two young, but there was no inde- 

 cision or hesitation in the manner of the mother 

 bird this time. The young were more than half 



