BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP 



Some of Ned's boy friends have tried very hard to 

 "get" the Whippoorwill, that is, to get a good look at it. 

 When it begins its song in the evening, they follow the 

 sound and try to creep up close to the bird. But it is 

 so dark that the sly rascal usually flits away some dis- 

 tance and begins again its tantalizing call. One boy 

 had the good luck one night to trace the bird to a rock 

 in an open field near the edge of the woods. It was 

 moonlight, and he stole up near enough to see it very 

 plainly. Ned once got a pretty good view of a Whip- 

 poorwill on the top of a rail fence, and another night 

 he and I watched for quite a while as it perched length- 

 wise on the ridge pole of a low roof. What a racket it 

 was making! The people in the house came out to see 

 what was up. 



But see now what great differences there are between 

 the Whippoorwill and the Nighthawk. The Whip- 

 poorwill is brown, the Nighthawk gray, with a white 

 bar on its wings. The Nighthawk is the long-winged 

 bird seen flying about well up in the air in the daytime, 

 especially during the afternoon, uttering a peculiar 

 squeak, and then diving swiftly almost to the earth, 

 making a loud booming sound as it suddenly checks 

 its flight and saves itself from having its brains dashed 

 out. The Whippoorwill, on the other hand, only flies 

 about at dusk and after, not rising high up, but gliding 

 from perch to perch in short sallies, and then, as it 

 perches, it utters the well-known cry which is inter- 

 preted " whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will." The Whip- 



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