WHIP-POOR-WILL. 449 



hind, I returned and found my pencil, but the young bird was 

 gone. 



Early in June, as soon as the young appear, the notes of the 

 male usually cease, or are heard but rarely. Towards the latter 

 part of summer, a short time before these birds leave us, they 

 are again occasionally heard; but their call is then not so loud 

 much less emphatical, andr more interrupted than in spring. 

 Early in September they move off towards the south. 



The favourite places of resort for these birds are on high dry 

 situations; in low marshy tracts of country they are seldom 

 heard. It is probably on this account that they are scarce on 

 the sea coast and its immediate neighbourhood; while towards 

 the mountains they are very numerous. The Night-hawks, 

 on the contrary, delight in these extensive sea marshes; and are 

 much more numerous there than in the interior and higher 

 parts of the country. But nowhere in the United States have 

 I found the Whip-poor-will in such numbers as in that tract of 

 country in the state of Kentucky called the Barrens. This ap- 

 pears to be their most congenial climate and place of residence. 

 There, from the middle of April to the first of June, as soon as 

 the evening twilight draws on, the shrill and confused clamours 

 of these birds are incessant, and very surprising to a stranger. 

 They soon, however, become extremely agreeable, the inhabi- 

 tants lie down at night lulled by their whistlings; and the first 

 approaches of dawn is announced by a general and lively cho- 

 rus of the same music; while the full-toned tooting, as it is 

 called, of the Pinnated Grous, forms a very pleasing bass to the 

 whole. 



I shall not, in the manner of some, attempt to amuse the rea- 

 der with a repetition of the unintelligible names given to this 

 bird by the Indians; or the superstitious notions generally en- 

 tertained of it by the same people. These seem as various as 

 the tribes, or even families with which you converse; scarcely 

 two of them will tell you the same story. It is easy however 

 to observe, that this, like the Owl and other nocturnal birds, is 

 held by them in a kind of suspicious awe, as a bird with which 



VOL. II. 3 L 



