A Doorstep Singer 



comes from the woods a quarter of a mile 

 away. 



Though I roamed the woods a good deal 

 as a lad, and whip-poor-wills were very 

 plenty in our vicinity, I never discovered 

 more than one of their nests, and, doubtless, 

 would not have found that, if the mother 

 bird had not darted away from under my 

 very feet, just in time to prevent my step 

 ping on her. The nest was a mere hollow 

 in the leaf-mold of a beech thicket on a 

 hillside. There was no pretense at nest- 

 building. The clouded, faintly blotched 

 eggs, two in number, lay on the bare ground 

 in the shallow depression made by the 

 mother bird. I did not touch them, but 

 hastened away, lest they should grow cold 

 before the mother ventured to return. 



Once I found a dead whip-poor-will in 

 the woods shot, probably, by some sports 

 man who mistook it for a woodcock, as the 

 flight of these two birds, when disturbed, 

 is very similar. I was glad of the oppor 

 tunity to examine the bird minutely, for I 

 had never seen one closer than our doorstep 

 singer. The whip-poor-will is one of the 

 oddest looking of birds a sort of ragged 

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