Where Town and Country Meet 



stone, in his coat of fluffy dull black and 

 soiled white. He did not stir when he ut- 

 tered his long-drawn note, and I used to 

 wonder how he could make so much noise 

 with so little apparent effort. The song was 

 peculiar, heard so near at hand. There were 

 two or three guttural or aspirant notes in 

 it, a kind of gasping or gulping sound, en- 

 tirely unnoticeable when the bird is heard 

 at a distance. The "whip" and "will" were 

 real whip-strokes of sound, with a lash and 

 snap to them that fairly cut the air. 



Now and then, in a spirit of boyish mis- 

 chief, I would throw something down at the 

 bird when he was in the midst of his song, 

 and it was astonishing and amusing to ob- 

 serve how suddenly and abruptly he would 

 stop and would dart away before the missile 

 reached the stone where he sat. I used to 

 hear others of the family laughing when, 

 with a half-finished "whip" or "whip-poo," 

 the ringing song would stop, like a violin 

 note when the string breaks. 



I must confess that the note of the whip- 

 poor-will heard close at hand is rather harsh 

 and disagreeable. It is much more romantic 

 to listen to the song of this bird when it 

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