The Whip-poor-will 291 



will, but, like it, is nocturnal in its habits. So .closely do the two birds 

 resemble each other, both in physical structure and in habits, that 

 naturalists tell us they are near relatives, and, in fact, they classify them 

 as belonging to the same family. Many of the people who live in the 

 forests where these birds are found do not know much about the scientific 

 study of birds, and usually believe that these two night-prowlers are one 

 and the same birds. They will tell you that the Chuck-will's-widow is 

 the male \Yhip-poor-will. 



Down in the lake country of central Florida, as a boy, I used to listen 

 to the Chuck-will's-widow calling on summer nights. When the winter 

 months came, however, the cries that came up from the deep woods of 

 an evening were different, for at that season these birds were all gone, 

 and their places taken by Whip-poor-wills which had arrived from the 

 more northern States to pass the winter where the snows never fall, and 

 frosts seldom come. 



Another closely related bird is often confused in the public mind with 

 the Whip-poor-will. This is the Nighthawk, or "Bull-bat." Very many 

 persons think there is no difference in these birds, but there is a marked 

 difference, both in appearance and habits. The Night- 

 hawk's wings are much longer, and, when folded, Niihthawk 

 reach well beyond the end of the tail, while the Whip- 

 poor-will's wings do not extend even as far as the end of the tail. The 

 Nighthawk flies about in the early evening, long before sunset, and may 

 sometimes be seen, even at noontime, hawking about for insects. It often 

 feeds hundreds of feet in the air, and may remain on the wing for an hour 

 or more at a time. On the other hand, its cousin of the shadows comes 

 out of its seclusion so late in the evening only, that it is difficult to see it, 

 and it captures its food by short flights near the ground. 



The Whip-poor-will, and the other two birds I have mentioned, 

 belong to the family of birds called Goatsuckers. They have very weak 

 feet and legs, and so move very slowly and feebly when on the ground. 

 They sit lengthwise on a limb, fence-rail, or other object on which they 

 chance to perch, and very rarely use the crosswise position so commonly 

 adapted by the perching birds. The mouth in this group is one of the 

 wonders of the bird-world because of its enormous size. All around the 

 upper lip is arranged a series of long, stiff, curving hairs, which form a 

 sort of broad scoop-net in which the bird entangles and seizes its insect- 

 prey, for it always feeds while on the wing, and the agile gnats and 

 moths might often be able to dodge or slip out of the very small beak 

 possessed by these birds were it not for the wide fringe of bristles. 



Few birds are more valuable to the farmer than is the Whip-poor-will. 

 It never does him any harm in any way, for it does not eat his cherries 

 and strawberries, nor does it pull up his newly planted corn, nor eat his 

 millet seed. It does not fill up the drainage-pipes of his house with sticks 

 and leaves as do the Wrens ; it does not eat his chicken-feed as do the 

 pestiferous European Sparrows, nor catch his young poultry . What it 

 does for him is to eat the ever-swarming insects that lay the eggs that 



