WHIP-POOR-WILL. 469 



Were a nest present in the exposed places where we find the 

 young, none would escape detection. The mother also, faith- 

 ful to her charge, deceives the passenger by prostrating herself 

 along the ground with beating wings, as if in her dying agony. 

 The activity of the young and old in walking, and the absence 

 of a nest, widely distinguishes these birds from the Swallows, 

 with which they are associated. A young fledged bird of this 

 species, presented to me, ran about with great celerity, but 

 refused to eat, and kept continually calling out at short inter- 

 vals pe-ugh in a low, mournful note. 



After the period of incubation, or about the middle of June, 

 the vociferations of the males cease, or are but rarely given. 

 Towards the close of summer, previously to their departure, 

 they are again occasionally heard, but their note is now languid 

 and seldom uttered ; and early in September they leave us for 

 the more genial climate of tropical America, being there found 

 giving their usual lively cry in the wilds of Cayenne and 

 Demerara. They enter the United States early in March, but 

 are some weeks probably in attaining their utmost northern 

 limit. 



Their food appears to be large moths, beetles, grasshoppers, 

 ants, and such insects as frequent the bark of decaying timber. 

 Sometimes, in the dusk, they will skim within a few feet of a 

 person, making a low chatter as they pass. They also, in com- 

 mon with other species, flutter occasionally around the domes- 

 tic cattle to catch any insects which approach or rest upon 

 them ; and hence the mistaken notion of their sucking goats, 

 while they only cleared them of molesting vermin. 



The Whip-poor-will is a common summer resident throughout 

 New England, and is not uncommon in the Maritime Provinces. It 

 is common also in Ontario, and Dr. Robert Bell reports finding it 

 in the southern parts of the Hudson Bay region. 



