180 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



tling, whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill, as 

 fast as he could. He seemed to feel that there was only 

 one thing worth doing in all the world and that 

 was to see how many times he could whistle whippoorwill 

 in a minute. We watched him for at least a half hour and 

 he never once paused for breath. This whistling without 

 a stop or break is a characteristic of the true whippoor- 

 will and becomes very tiresome after a time. 



Usually whippoorwills sit on the top of a house or 

 on a cattle shed or some similar place to sing, and they 

 keep up their song from dark till dawn. 



The chuck-will's-widow and the poorwill are the only 

 birds that could be mistaken for a whippoorwill. Their 

 habits are very similar to the whippoorwill's, but the birds 

 differ in song, size, and details of coloration. 



