CAPRIMULGUS VOCIFERUS* 

 WHIP-POOR-WILL. 



[Plate ;XLL -Fig. 1, Male. Fig. 2, Female. Fig. 3, 

 Young. ] 



PEALE'S Museum, JVo. 7721, wiate, 7722, female. 



THIS is a singular and very celebrated species, universally 

 noted over the greater part of the United States for the loud 

 reiterations of his favourite call in spring; and yet personally he 

 is but little known, most people being unable to distinguish this 

 from the preceding species, when both are placed before them; 

 and some insisting that they are the same. This being the case, 

 it becomes the duty of his historian to give a full and faithful 

 delineation of his character and peculiarity of manners, that his 

 existence as a distinct and independent species may no longer 

 be doubted, nor his story mingled confusedly with that of ano- 

 ther. I trust that those best acquainted with him will bear wit- 

 ness to the fidelity of the portrait. 



On or about the twenty-fifth of April, if the season be not un- 

 commonly cold, the Whip-poor-will is first heard in this part 

 of Pennsylvania, in the evening, as the dusk of twilight com- 

 mences, or in the morning as soon as dawn has broke. In the 

 state of Kentucky I first heard this bird on the fourteenth of 

 April, near the town of Danville. The notes of this solitary 

 bird, from the ideas which are naturally associated with them, 

 seem like the voice of an old friend, and are listened to by al- 

 most all with great interest. At first they issue from some retired 

 part of the woods, the glen or mountain; in a few evenings per- 

 haps we hear them from the adjoining coppice the garden fence 

 the road before the door, and even from the roof of the dwel- 

 * Caprimulgits virginianus, VIEILL. Ois. de I'dm. Sept, pi. 23. 



