NIGHT-JAR, WHIP-POOR-WlLL-NIGHT-HAWk, BULL-BAT, PISK, PIRaMIDIG. 



165 



captivity. Having no weapons of defense, except their wings, 

 their chief security is in the solitude of night, and in their color 

 and close retreats by day ; the former so much resembling that of 

 dead leaves of various hues, as not to be readily distinguished 

 from them even when close at hand." 



Night-Jar, Whip-poor-will. (Antrostomus vociferus.) 



Fig- 3- 



The Whip-poor-will, so called from its peculiar cry, is a well- 

 known nocturnal bird, and is rarely seen. It is an abundant spe- 

 cies, and may be met with in the eastern parts of the United 

 States. 



" This remarkable and well-known nocturnal bird," says Nuttall, 

 " arrives in the Southern States in March, and in the Middle States 

 about the close of April or the beginning of May, and proceeds, 

 in his vernal migrations, along the Atlantic States, to the center of 

 Massachusetts, being rare and seldom seen beyond the latitude of 

 43 ; and yet, in the interior of the continent, according to Vieillot, 

 they continue as far as Hudson's Bay, and even heard, as usual, 

 by Mr. Say, at Pembino, in the high latitude of 49 . In all this 

 vast intermediate space, as far south as Natchez, on the Mississippi, 

 and the interior of Arkansas, they familiarly breed and take up 

 their temporary residence. Some also pass the winter in the in- 

 terior of East Florida, according to Audubon. In the eastern part 

 of Massachusetts, however, they are uncommon, and always af- 

 fect sheltered, wild, and hilly situations, for which they have in 

 general a preference. About the same time that the sweetly echo- 

 ing voice of the Cuckoo is first heard in the north of Europe, issu- 

 ing from the leafy groves, as the sure harbinger of the flowery 

 month of May, arrives among us, in the shades of night, the mys- 

 terious ■ Whip-poor-will.' The well-known saddening sound is 

 first only heard in the distant forest, re-echoing from the lonely 

 glen or rocky cliff; at length, the oft-told solitary tale is uttered 

 from the fence of the adjoining field or garden, and sometimes the 

 slumbering inmates of the cottage are serenaded from the low roof 

 or from some distant shed. Superstition, gathering terror from 

 every extraordinary feature of nature, has not suffered this harm- 

 less nocturnal babbler to escape suspicion, and his familiar ap- 

 proaches are sometimes dreaded as an omen of misfortune." 



" In the lower part of the State of Delaware I have found these 

 birds troublesomely abundant in the breeding season, so that the 

 reiterated echoes of * whip, whip-poor-will, whip-peri-will,' issuing 

 from several birds at the same time, occasioned such a confused vo- 

 ciferation as at first to banish sleep. This call, except in moonlight 

 nights, is continued usually till midnight, when they cease, until 

 again aroused, for a while. At the commencement of twilight the 

 first and last syllables of their brief ditty receive the strongest em- 

 phasis, and now and then a sort of guttural cluck is heard between 

 the repetitions, but the whole phrase is uttered in a little more than 

 a second of time. But if superstition takes alarm at our familiar 

 and simple species, what would be thought by the ignorant of a 

 South American kind, large as the Wood-owl, which, in the lonely 

 forests of Demerara, about midnight breaks out, lamenting like 

 one in deep distress, and in a tone more dismal even than the pain- 

 ful hexachord of the doubtful Ai. The sounds, like the expiring 

 sighs of some agonizing victim, begin with a high, loud note, * ha, 

 ha, ha, ha, ha ! ha 1 ha !' — each tone falling lower and lower, till 

 the last syllable is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two be- 

 tween this reiterated tale of seeming sadness. 



" Four other species of the Goatsucker, according to Waterton, 

 also inhabit this tropical wilderness, among which also is included 

 our present subject. Figure to yourself the surprise and wonder 

 of the stranger, who takes up the solitary abode for the first night 

 amidst these awful and interminable forests, when at twilight he 

 begins to be assailed familiarly with a spectral equivocal bird, ap- 

 proaching within a few yards, and then accosting him with ■ who- 



are-you, 'who-'who, 'who-are-you ? ' Another approaches, and bids 

 him, as if a slave under the lash, * work-away, work-work-work- 

 away.' A third mournfully cries, « willy-come-go ! willy-willy- 

 willy-come-go I' And as you get among the high lands, our old 

 acquaintance vociferates, « whip-poor-will, 'whip-'whip-'whip-poor- 

 will I ' It is therefore not surprising that such unearthly sounds 

 should be considered in the light of supernatural forebodings issu- 

 ing from specters in the guise of birds. Although our Whip-poor- 

 will seems to speak out in such plain English, to the ears of the 

 aboriginal Delaware its call was ' wecoalis,' though this was proba- 

 bly some favorite phrase or interpretation, which served it for a 

 name. The Whip-poor-will, when engaged in these nocturnal 

 rambles, is seen to fly within a few feet of the surface in quest of 

 moths and other insects, frequently, when abundant, alighting 

 around the house. During the day they retire into the darkest 

 woods, usually on high ground, where they pass the time in silence 

 and repose, the weakness of their sight by day compelling them to 

 avoid the glare of the light. 



" The female commences laying about the second week in May 

 in the Middle States ; considerably later in Massachusetts. She it 

 at no pains to form a nest, though she selects for her deposit some 

 unfrequented part of the forest, near a pile of brush, a heap of 

 leaves, or the low shelving of a hollow rock, and always in a dry 

 situation. Here she lays two eggs, without any appearance of an 

 artificial bed. They are of a dusky bluish-white, thickly blotched 

 with dark olive. This deficiency of nest is amply made up by the 

 provision of nature, for, like Partridges, the young are soon able 

 to run about after their parents, and, until the growth of their 

 feathers, they seem such shapeless lumps of clay-colored down, 

 that it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish them from the 

 ground on which they repose. Were a nest present in the exposed 

 places where we find the young, none would escape detection. 

 The mother, also faithful to her charge, deceives the passenger 

 by prostrating herself along the ground with beating wings, as if 

 in her dying agony. The activity of the young and old in walk- 

 ing, and the absence of a nest, widely distinguishes these birds 

 from the Swallows, with which they are associated. Their food 

 appears to be large moths, beetles, grasshoppers, ants, and such 

 insects as frequent the bark of decaying timber." 



Night-hawk, Bull-bat, Pisk, Piramidig. (Chordeiles virgintanus.) 



Fig. 4. 



This species, in the spring and fall, during the migrations, is 

 abundant in most all parts of North America. 



" Bonaparte remarks," says Brewer, " that the Night-hawks are 

 among the Swallows what the Owls are among the Falconida ; 

 and, if we maybe allowed the expression, the first has more of the. 

 hirundine look than the others. The whole plumage is harder, the 

 ends of the quills are more pointed, the tail is forked, and the rec- 

 tus wants the strong array of bristles which we consider one of the 

 essentials in the most perfect form of cafrimulgus. We may here 

 remark (although we know that there are exceptions), that we have 

 generally observed in those having the tail forked, and conse- 

 quently with a greater power of quick flight and rapid turnings, 

 that the plumage is more rigid and the flight occasionally diurnal. 

 This is borne out also in our present species, which play « about in 

 the air, over the breeding-place, even during the day;' and, in 

 their migrations, ' may be seen almost everywhere, from five 

 o'clock until after sunset, passing along the Schuylkill and the 

 adjacent shores.' 



" The truly night-feeding species have the plumage loose and 

 downy, as in the nocturnal Owls ; the wings more blunted, and the 

 plumules coming to a slender point and unconnected; the tail 

 rounded, and the rectus armed, in some instances, with very pow- 

 erful bristles. Their organs of sight are also fitted only for a more 

 gloomy light. They appear only at twilight, reposing during the 



