FAMILY Caprlmultfde*, 



vVilson liad a fair idcu of tin- r --P..M si ve character o| 

 the Whip-poor-will's singing, but of course he had no 

 conception of the musical relationship of the keys in 

 which the bird sang ; he writes, " when two or more 

 males meet, their whip-poor-will altercations become 

 much more rapid and incessant, as if each were strain- 

 ing to overpower or silence the other. When near you 

 often hear an introductory cluck between the not 

 these times they fly low, not more than a few feet from 

 the ground, skimming about the house and before the 

 door, alighting on the wood-pile, or settling on the roof." 



The bird sings during the early hours of the evening, 

 or all night if it is a moon-lit one, and the springtime. 

 He does his hunting along water-courses and on the 

 borders of the woods, his large mouth enabling him 

 to readily catch insects as he flies. By imitating the 

 song I have often lured one to such close quarters that 

 the wings have almost brushed my hat. It is certainly 

 a very common bird throughout the Pemigewasset 

 Valley. 



Nighthawk The Nighthawk is a very near relative 



of the Whip-poor-will, and singularly 

 virgimanus . . f . , . ., _r 



L. 10.00 inches en <> u g n is often mistaken for it. But the 

 May 2oth characters and markings of the birds are 

 distinctly different. The tone of the Nighthawk's 

 color is a blackish sepia brown. Upper parts black, 

 thickly marked with white and buff ; wings and tail 

 sepia ; the middle of the larger wing feathers marked 

 with a white spot, the spots forming collectively 

 a conspicuous white wing-bar. Tail feathers marked 

 with buff on a sepia ground, and all but the middle ones 

 white-banded near the end ; throat with a broad white 

 band ; under parts barred with black and white often 

 tinged with buff. The female is similarly marked, but 

 lacks the white on tail and throat, the latter is ochre- 

 buff. Egg gray-white profusely speckled with gray- 

 makes two tones of it, separated by an interval of a third. One 

 can not produce this effect by imitating the Whip-poor-will's song 

 strictly a tempo; it is impossible to do anything else than bounce on 

 that middle syllable. 



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