WHIP-POOR-WILL. 381 
scarcely attached to the fiesh; flesh, also loose, extremely tender ; 
bones, thin and slender; sinews and muscles of the wing, feeble; dis- 
tance between the tips of both mandibles, when expanded, full two 
inches, lengtli of the opening, one inch and a half; breadth, one inch 
and a quarter ; tongue, very short, attached to the skin of the mouth, 
its internal parts, or os hyoides, pass up the hind head, and reach to the 
front, like those of the Woodpecker; which enable the bird to revert 
the lower part of the mouth in the act of seizing insects, and in call- 
ing; skull, extremely light and thin, being semi-transparent, its cavity 
nearly half occupied by the eyes; aperture for the brain, very small, 
the quantity not exceeding that of a Sparrow; an Owl of the same 
extent of wing has at least ten times as much. 
Though this noted bird has been so frequently mentioned by name, 
and its manners taken notice of by almost every naturalist who has 
written on our birds, yet personally it has never been described by 
any writer with whose works I am acquainted. Extraordinary as this 
may seem, it is nevertheless true; and in proof I offer the following 
facts : — 
Three species only of this genus are found within the United States 
— the Chuck-will’s-widow, the Night Hawk, and the Whip-poor-will. 
Catesby, in the eighth plate of Ins Natural History of Carolina, has 
figured the first, and, in the sixteenth of his Appendix, the second; to 
this he has added particulars of the Whip-poor-will, believing it to 
be that bird, and has ornamented his figure of the Night Hawk 
with a large bearded appendage, of which in nature it is entirely 
destitute. After him, Mr. Edwards, in his sixty-third plate, has in like 
manner figured the Night Hawk, also adding the bristles, and call- 
ing his figure the Whip-poor-will, accompanying it with particulars 
of the notes, &c., of that bird, chiefly copied from Catesby. The next 
writer of eminence who has spoken of the Whip-poor-will, is Mr. 
Pennant, justly considered as one of the most judicious and discrim- 
inating of English naturalists; but, deceived by “the lights he had,” 
he has, in his account of the Short-winged Goatsucker,* (Arct. Zool., 
p. 434,) given the size, markings of plumage, d&c., of the Chuck-will’s- 
widow ; and, in the succeeding account of his Long-winged Goat- 
sucker, describes pretty accurately the Night Hawk. Both of these 
birds he considers to be the Whip-poor-will, and as having the same 
notes and manners. 
After such authorities, it was less to be wondered at, that many of 
our own citizens, and some of our naturalists and writers, should fall 
into the like mistake ; as copies of the works of those English natu- 
talists are to be found in several of our colleges, and in some of our 
public as well as private libraries. The means which the author of 
American Ornithology toc x to satisfy his own mind and those of his 
friends, on this subject, were detailed at large, in a paper published 
about two years ago, in a periodical work of this city,t with which ex- 
tract I shall close my account <f the present species : — 
“On the question, Is the Whip-poor-will and the Night Hawk’ one 
* The figure is, by mistake, called the Long-winged Goatsucker. See Arctic 
Zoology, vol. ii. pl. 18. 
t The Portfolio. 
