WHIP-POOR-WILL. 
245 
instead of which there is a dully defined mark of a reddish cream color ; 
the wings are nearly black, all the quills being slightly tipped with 
white; the tail is as in the male, and minutely tipped with white; all 
the scapulars and whole upper parts are powdered with a much lighter 
gray- 
There is no description of the present species in Turton's translation 
of Linnams. The characters of the genus given in the same work are 
also in this case incorrect, viz. " mouth furnished with a se?'ies of bristles 
— tail not forked," the Night-hawk having nothing of the former, and 
its tail being largely forked. 
CAPRIMUL G US VO CIFER US. * 
WHIP-POOR-WILL. 
[Plate XLI. Fig. 1, Male. Fig. 2, Female. Fig. 3, Young.] 
This is a singular and very celebrated species, universally noted over 
the greater part of the United States for the loud 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 confusedly 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 twenty-fifth of April, if the season be not uncom- 
monly cold, the Whip-pool-will is first heard in this part of Pennsylvania, 
in the evening, as the dusk of twilight commences, or in the morning 
as soon as dawn has broke. In the state of Kentucky I first heard 
this bird on the fourteenth 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 issue 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 
* Caprimulgus virginianus, Vieill. Ois. de V Am. Sept. pi. 23. 
