170 



WHIP-POOR- WILL. 



reiterations of his favourite call in spring ; and yet personally 

 he is but little known, most people being unable to distinguish 

 this from the preceding species when both are placed before 

 them, and some insisting that they are the same. This 

 being the case, it becomes the duty of his historian to give a 

 full and faithful delineation of his character and peculiarity 

 of manners, that his existence as a distinct and independent 

 species may no longer be doubted, nor his story mingled con- 

 fusedly with that of another. I trust that those best acquainted 

 with him will bear witness to the fidelity of the portrait. 



On or about the 25th of April, if the season be not un- 

 commonly cold, the whip-poor-will is first heard in this part 

 of Pennsylvania, in the evening as the dusk of twilight com- 

 mences, or in the morning as soon as dawn has broke. In 

 the State of Kentucky I first heard this bird on the 14th of 

 April, near the town of Danville. The notes of this solitary 

 bird, from the ideas which are naturally associated with them, 

 seem like the voice of an old friend, and are listened to by 

 almost all with great interest. At first they issued from some 

 retired part of the woods, the glen, or mountain ; in a few 

 evenings, perhaps, we hear them from the adjoining coppice, 

 the garden fence, the road before the door, and even from the 

 roof of the dwelling-house, long after the family have retired to 

 rest. Some of the more ignorant and superstitious consider this 

 near approach as foreboding no good to the family, — nothing 

 less than sickness, misfortune, or death, to some of its mem- 

 bers. These visits, however, so often occur without any bad 

 consequences, that this superstitious dread seems on the decline. 



He is now a regular acquaintance. Every morning and 

 evening his shrill and rapid repetitions are heard from the 

 adjoining woods, and when two or more are calling out at 

 the same time, as is often the case in the pairing season, and 

 at no great distance from each other, the noise, mingling with 

 the echoes from the mountains, is really surprising. Strangers, 

 in parts of the country where these birds are numerous, find 

 it almost impossible for some time to sleep ; while to those 



