THE WHIP-POOR-WILL. . 237 



the stores, and Pierre read the following notes for the 

 gratification of his companions. 



" Lawson," Pierre began, " speaking of this bird, says : 

 ' It is so named whip-poor-will because it makes 

 those words exactly. They are the bigness of a thrush, 

 and call their note under a bush, on the ground, hard 

 to be seen, though you hear them never so plain.' 

 Ordinarily, towards the close of April or in the first 

 week of May, the whip-poor-will arrives in his migra- 

 tion to the middle States. It is remarkable that on 

 the eastern sea-board this bird seerns to fix his northern 

 limit about latitude 43 or 44, while in the interior he 

 pushes his adventurous way many degrees further 

 north. The well-known writer Nuttall says : ' In all 

 this vast intermediate space' (between Natchez, on the 

 Mississippi, and British America) ' they familiarly breed 

 and take up their residence. About the same time 

 that the sweetly-echoing voice of the cuckoo is heard 

 in the north of Europe issuing from the leafy groves, 

 as the sure harbinger of the flowery month of May, 

 arrives among us in the shades of night the mysterious 

 whip-poor-will.' 



" I am surprised that the traveller Richardson should 

 have fixed the limit of northern migration of the whip- 

 poor-will at the 50th parallel, when, in fact, it is fre- 

 quently heard at points much farther north. The 

 truth is that much depends on circumstances such as 

 the weather, or the individual propensities of particular 

 birds. And so we see that multitudes of wild-fowl 



