60 NORTH CAROLINA 



North Carolina." Here was a really novel 

 addition to the familiar legend about the 

 identity of the whippoorwill and the night- 

 hawk, — a legend whose distribution is per- 

 haps almost as wide as that of the birds them- 

 selves. 



But wonders were not to stop here. One 

 of the men, the one who had that forenoon 

 seen a raven, proceeded to inform me that 

 catbirds passed the winter in the mud, in 



a state of hibernation. William had 



dug them up, and they had come to and 

 flown away. He himself had never seen 

 this, but he knew, as everybody else did, 

 that catbirds disappeared in the autumn, 

 there was no telling how or when, and reap- 

 peared in the spring in a manner equally 

 mysterious. I hinted some incredulity, to 

 his great surprise, intimating for one thing 

 that it was well known that catbirds migrated 

 farther south ; whereupon he appealed to his 

 companion. " Would n't you believe it, if 



William told you he had seen it? " he 



asked; and there was a shout of laughter 

 from the bystanders when the second man, 

 after a minute's reflection, answered bluntly, 

 "No." 



