238 Bird -Lore 



photographically. Some there be who consider the results not worth the effort, 

 and from their point of view they are right. The male Whip-poor-will I saw 

 only once, and that was after the young were fully grown. He was very con- 

 spicuous in the dusk as he sat on a log, uttering rasping sounds in his throat 

 and opening and shutting his tail, brilliantly marked with white at the edges. 

 It was only a day or so after seeing the male bird that I lost sight of the young 

 birds altogether. 



In the spring, before the birds mate, one can often call the Whip-poor-wills 

 by imitating their evening song. Once I watched two males fighting and sing- 

 ing at intervals on a fallen birch sapling. I was quite close to them, — -within a 

 yard — but they did not seem to regard me as dangerous, and when I tried to 

 imitate the guttural noises they were making, they circled round my head so 

 closely that one touched me with his wings. In the darkness I was probably 

 no more than a charred stump. The song of the Whip-poor-will, when heard 

 at close range, say within a rod or so, is a rasping, guttural sing-song ending 

 with a jerk. 



Few people know the Whip-poor-will; he is merely a wandering voice, a 

 cry in the night. Some think of him as closely connected with bats, and the 

 country folk will tell you that the Whip-poor-will and Nighthawk are one and 

 the same bird. Some day in late May or early June you may startle a Whip- 

 poor-will from the chestnut leaves, and if you seem to have stepped on her 

 and the bird heightens the illusion by fluttering painfully along the leaves, 

 stop right where you are and look for the eggs from which she started. Don't 

 move your feet, for you may crush an egg or even a young chick. So you 

 will come to know Lady Whip-poor-will and appreciate the wandering voice. 



