130 FAMILIAR FEATURES OF THE ROADSIDE. 



twenty yards or so of the bird ; it sounds as though 

 in sucking in his breath for the next " whip " he 

 snapped his beak together. This somewhat melan- 

 choly vesper song begins at sundown and continues, 

 less and less frequently, well on into the night. The 

 whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus) is a large 

 bird, perhaps ten inches long. About his bill are 

 long, stiff, curved hairs. His colors are a variety of 

 tawny, light, and dark browns ; on the breast is a 

 narrow band of white. In this respect his coloring 

 is exactly like that of a toad, or perhaps the large 

 brown branch of a tree on which he sits in a crouch- 

 ing attitude, with his wings slightly spread and his 

 body jerking violently with every " whip." 



The bird is not often seen, but he is heard every- 

 where, and one can locate him by the sound of his 

 voice, now on the wood pile,* then on the fence, next 

 in the copse beside the road, and again in the bushes 

 bordering the garden. Before one knows it he is 

 gone ; he flies low and silently, and sails along until 

 he reaches, some thirty yards away, a convenient 



* I think it is Dr. Abbott who has intimated that the wood 

 pile has of late years gone out of fashion as a perch for the whip- 

 poor-will. That may be the case in civilized New Jersey ; but 

 should any one come up into the wilds of New Hampshire and 

 sit on an obscure corner of my wood pile at dusk, I think he 

 will be convinced that the whip-poor-will has not given up his 

 old habit ! 



