The Poorwills 



witching twilight for the homely glare of the waiting kerosene; so he 

 lingers on his milk-stool watching the fading light in the western sky and 

 dreaming, as only a boy can dream, of days which are yet to be. Every 

 sense is lulled to rest, and the spirit comes forth to explore the lands beyond 

 the hills, to conquer cities, discover poles, or scale the heights of heaven, 

 when suddenly out of the stillness comes the plaintive cry of the Poor-will, 

 Poor-will, poor-will. It is not a disturbing note, but rather the authentic 

 voice of silence, the yearning of the bordering wilderness made vocal in 

 appeal to the romantic spirit of youth. Poor Will! Poor Will! you 

 think upon cities, actions, achievements; think rather upon solitude, upon 

 quietness, upon lonely devotions. Come, oh, come to the wilderness, 

 to the mystic, silent, fateful wastes! And ever after, even though duty 

 call him to the city, to the stupid, stifling, roaring (and glorious) city, 

 the voice of the Poor-will has wrought its work within the heart of the 

 exiled farmer boy, and he owns a reverence for the silent places, a loyalty 

 of affection for the wilderness, which not all the enforced subservience of 

 things which creak or blare or shriek may fully efface. 



The Poor-will spends the day sleeping on the ground under the shelter 

 of a sage-bush, or close beside some lichen-covered rock, to which its 

 intricate pattern of plumage marvelously assimilates. When startled, 

 by day, the bird emits a mellow quirp, qiiirp of protest, flits a few yards 

 over the sage-tops and plumps down at haphazard. If it chances to 

 settle in the full sunlight, it appears to be blinded and may allow a close 

 approach; but if in the shade, one is not likely to surprise it again. Even 

 after nightfall these fairy moth-catchers are much more terrestrial in their 

 habits than are the Nighthawks. They alight upon the ground upon 

 the slightest pretext and, indeed, appear most frequently to attain their 

 object by leaping up at passing insects. They are more strictly nocturnal 

 in habit, also, than the Night-jars, and we know of their later movements 

 only through the intermittent exercise of song. Heard in some starlit 

 canyon, the passing of a Poor-will in full cry is an indescribable experience, 

 producing feelings somewhere between pleasure and fear, — pleasure in 

 the delightful melancholy of the notes heard in the dim distance, but 

 something akin to terror at the near approach and thrilling climax of the 

 portentous sounds. 



Poor-wills are creatures of habit, and form very strong local attach- 

 ments. Mr. Mailliard tells of a bird, at Hunter's Camp, on the Rancho 

 San Geronimo, which tuned up regularly at eight o'clock in the evening, 

 insomuch that when on one occasion the camp time-piece had stopped, the 

 Hunters served supper by the Poor-will's call. Scientific veracity coun- 

 sels me to add that the bird, sensing, no doubt, the humor of the thing, 



1056 



