THE GOATSUCKERS. 
101 
ing, and prolonging the encounter, — sometimes for more than a mile, 
— until relieved by some member of his tribe, not less ready than 
himself for combat. The tyrant, however, abandons this warlike mood 
at the close of the breeding season. 
He is a songless bird, — his call being confined to a shrill twitter. 
His mode of flight is remarkable. The vibrations of his broad wings, 
as he sails slowly over the fields, resemble those of a hovering hawk ; 
and his object is probably the same — to look out for passing victims, 
either in the air or among the blossoms below him. His eye moves 
restlessly around, traces the flight of an insect for a moment or two, 
then that of a second or even a third, until he perceives one to his 
taste; then with a shrill cry he pursues, seizes and devours it, — 
returning to his former station to watch for another prey. He fre- 
quents, moreover, the neighbourhood of the bee-hive, making sad 
work among its inhabitants; though some naturalists contend that, 
with a fine instinct, he spares the working bees, and confines his 
depredations to the drones. 
THE WOODS AND PRAIRIES OF NORTH AMERICA. 
The traveller in the United States is not long in making the 
acquaintance of one of the most celebrated and interesting of the 
goatsuckers ; the species known, in allusion to its peculiar cry, as the 
whip-poor-will. At least, such are the syllables which his shrill and 
rapidly-reiterated notes seem to articulate; the first and last syllables 
being uttered with great emphasis, and the whole in about a second 
to each repetition. If two or more males meet, however, their " whip- 
poor-will" altercations grow swifter and more incessant, each being 
engaged apparently in an ambitious endeavour to silence or " out- 
crow" his companions. 
His general name of " goatsucker " alludes to the calumny that 
the bird is accustomed to suck the milk of goats during the night; a 
story not less absurd than the old zoological fable of the barnacle 
goose which grew in some mysterious way out of a well-known 
shell-fish. No doubt he hovers about the fiocks of goats and sheep, 
and frequents the neighbourhood of the patient kine. But his object 
