Where Town and Country Meet 



minstrel of the bird-world, mottled all over 

 with indistinct neutral colors, reddish 

 brown, grayish black, and dirty white. The 

 most distinct feature of its plumage is the 

 white collar that crosses its neck in front. 

 The mouth is surrounded with hairy bris- 

 tles, which aid the bird in catching and re- 

 taining its insect food. The eyes are very 

 large and beautiful, as is the case with all 

 nocturnal birds. The claws are short and 

 "stubby," and not fitted for perching. A 

 poet once wrote some beautiful verses on 

 "The Whip-poor-will," but the editor to 

 whom he sent them, being somewhat of a 

 naturalist, returned them with the criticism 

 that he could not allow the whip-poor-will 

 to "sway upon a bough" in his magazine, 

 since the bird never did such a thing in a 

 state of nature. As a matter of fact, while 

 the whip-poor-will never does "perch" in 

 the proper sense of that term, it does some- 

 times alight on fences and large boughs 

 whose surface is broad enough for the bird 

 to stand upon without grasping. 



I was surprised, on taking the dead whip- 

 poor-will in hand, to see how large it was. 

 I carried it home and measured it. Its total 

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