THE WHIPPOORWILLS. 



From the first of May I had heard tlie 

 ■vvlhippoorwill caUing from the wood at 

 early evening, but one day as I was 

 walking through a pasture not far from 

 our place a large, mottled biown, grey 

 and white bird flew up from among the 

 daisies. At first it fluttered about very 

 near the ground, as if injured, and then 

 settled on a rock, with its long pointed 

 wings outspread. When I went to the 

 place from which the bird had flown, 

 this is what I saw : 



A bare, flat rock, without a stick or 

 a straw, and in a little hollow two 

 creamy white eggs, spotted with bro\m 

 and purple, and about as large as those 

 of a pigeon. 



By this time the mother bird w'a.s real- 

 \y alarmed, and, flying to a nearby tree, 

 began to make a harsh noise, like the 

 grating of pieces of wood. This called 

 the male, who sailed round and round, 

 far overhead, making a similar, but loud- 

 er and fiercer noise. At times he would 

 dart toward the earth as if to attack me, 

 then rise again, calling louder than be- 

 fore. \Vlicn I told my friends about the 

 birds some said I had found a night- 

 hawk's nest ; others that the male was 

 the whipporwill and the female the night- 

 hawk. So I looked the matter up in 

 three reliable works on ornithology, and 

 found that the nighthawk is another bird 

 although very similar to the whippoor- 

 will in appearance and habits. Some of 

 their differing characteristics are the 

 conspicuous white spots on the wings of 

 the nighthawk and booming noise it 



makes when flying. My birds were 

 whippoorwills. 



After this I went nearly every day to 

 the nest and the mother bird, finding that 

 I did not intend to disturb her, sat on 

 the eggs as if asleep, while the male, 

 not so confident of my innocence, sailed 

 watchfully above. 



But at night he was not so hostile, for 

 he came to a tree quite near the house, 

 and, in his clear, melancholy notes, 

 called whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, 

 for hours. Sometimes in the early even- 

 ing a catbird from the shrul^bery. trying 

 to imitate him, would call poor-will, 

 poor-will. 



When the patient mother had been sit- 

 ting on the eggs for two weeks, moving 

 them about a little from day to day, I 

 found one morning two little downy yel- 

 low and igray mottled l>eings, and two 

 broken egg shells on the stone. 



Tliey vflere not scrawny and feather- 

 less, as are so many young birds, but 

 their flat bodies were well coveerd with 

 feathers. 



It was a long time before I found out 

 \\hat the baby whippoorwills were fed 

 on. They never seemed to be hungry, 

 and, although they came up timidly and 

 looked in when I held out my hand, 

 they would neither eat the bread crumbs 

 or cherries. But in the late afternoon 

 the parent birds could be found catch- 

 ing flies as they sailed through the air 

 close to the ground. In September we 

 missed the evening call and knew that we 

 should not hear it again until the violets 

 came in the spring. 



Ella Ursula Hayden. 



I^ud and sudden and near the notes of a whippoorwill sounded 



Like a flute in the woods; and anon, thrnnq:h the neighboring thickets, 



Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into silence. 



— Henry Wadswortii Longfellow, "Evangeline." 



