.The Bird that Whips Poor Will 



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awakes and furnishes him subsistence. There 

 is a tradition in Virginia that it arrives there 

 whenever " corn is up " ; but it is not usually 

 heard in New York before May-day. Even then 

 only the wilder places may listen, for the whip- 

 poor-will avoids the town and lends his society 

 to farmer and woodsman alone. He hunts along 

 lanes and country roads, where he is so fond 

 of rolling about in the dust that the Mexicans 

 call birds of this sort " road-blockers " ; and 

 after the farmer and his " hands " have gone 

 indoors for the night, searches the orchard and 

 dooryard, and summons his rivals to vocal con- 

 tests there, but he has no mind for displaying 

 himself by daylight. 



None of our birds, perKaps, is so truly and ex- 

 clusively nocturnal as this one. Owls, bitterns 

 and even night-hawks, are often seen abroad in 

 daylight, but never the whip-poor-will, nor its 

 big Southern cousin, the chuck-wilPs-widow, 

 even in the cloudiest weather. To find them, in 

 the daytime, you must go into dense woods or 

 some swampy thicket, where their days are 

 passed watchful of a nest or soundly sleeping 

 *$ 163 5+ 



