WHIP-POOR-WILL. 453 



loose, wrinkly and scarcely attached to the flesh; flesh also loose, 

 extremely tender; bones thin and slender; sinews and muscles 

 of the wing feeble; distance between the tips of both mandibles, 

 when expanded, full two inches, length of the opening one inch 

 and a half, breadth one inch and a quarter; tongue very short, 

 attached to the skin of the mouth, its internal part or os hyoides 

 pass up the hind head, and reach to the front, like those of the 

 Woodpecker; which enables the bird to revert the lower part 

 of the mouth in the act of seizing insects and in calling; skull 

 extremely light and thin, being semi-transparent, its cavity 

 nearly half occupied by the eyes; aperture for the brain very 

 small, the quantity not exceeding that of a Sparrow; an Owl of 

 the same extent of wing has at least ten times as much. 



Though this noted bird has been so frequently mentioned by 

 name, and its manners taken notice of by almost every natural- 

 ist who has written on our birds, yet personally it has never 

 yet been described by any writer with whose works I am ac- 

 quainted. Extraordinary as this may seem, it is nevertheless 

 true; and in proof I offer the following facts. 



Three species only of this genus are found within the United 

 States, the C buck-will' s-widow, the Night-hawk, and the 

 Whip-poor-will. Catesby, in the eighth plate of his Natural 

 History of Carolina, has figured the first, and in the sixteenth 

 of his Appendix the second; to this he has added particulars of 

 the Whip-poor-will, believing it to be that bird, and has orna- 

 mented his figure of the Night-hawk with a large bearded ap- 

 pendage, of which in nature it is entirely destitute. After him 

 Mr. Edwards, in his sixty-third plate, has in like manner 

 figured the Night-hawk, also adding the bristles, and calling his 

 figure the Whip-poor-will, accompanying it with particulars of 

 the notes, &c. of that bird, chiefly copied from Catesby. The 

 next writer of eminence who has spoken of the Whip-poor-will 

 is Mr. Pennant, justly considered as one of the most judicious 

 and discriminating of English naturalists; but, deceived by 

 " the lights he had/' he has in his account of the Short-winged 



