Whip-poor-will SONGLESS BIRDS. 



ORDER MACROCHIRES: SWIFTS, WHIP- 

 POOR-WILLS, ETC. 



FAMILY CAPRIMULGIDJS : GOATSUCKERS. 

 Whip-poor-will : Antrostomus vociferus. 



PLATE 43. 



Length : 9-10 inches. 



Male and Female: A long- winged bird of the twilight and night. 

 Large mouth fringed with bristles. Plumage dusky and Owl- 

 like, much spotted with black and gray. Wings beautifully 

 mottled with shades of brown; lower half of the outer tail 

 quills white in the male, but rusty in female. 



Note : " Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will ; " repeated usually five times 

 in succession, followed by a jarring noise during flight. 



Season : Late April to September. Common summer resident, except 

 near the shore. 



Breeds : In ail parts of its range, but most freely toward the northern 

 portions. 



Nest : Builds none, but substitutes a mossy hollow in rock or ground. 



Eggs : 2, creamy-white, freely marked, and spotted with brown. 



Range : Eastern United States to the Plains, south to Guatemala. 



This weird bird, with its bristling, fly-trap mouth, who 

 sleeps all day and prowls by night, conies to us late in April, 

 if the season is warm, clamouring and waking strange echoes 

 in the bare woods, and in early September, mute and mys- 

 terious, he gathers his flocks and moves silently on, for the 

 Whip-poor-will has not at any time even a transient home 

 to abandon ; like the pilgrims of old, the earth is his only 

 bed. 



This bird is somewhat erratic in its local distribution. 

 It is noted here as a common summer resident, yet is sel- 

 dom heard within two miles of the beach, except in the 

 spring migration, and I have never but once found it in 

 the garden. After crossing the Greenfield Hill Ridge, the 

 numbers increase, and in the wooded hollow below Redding 

 Ridge they are so numerous as to make the early night 

 noisy. 



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