250 
WHIP-POOR-WILL. 
the eyes arc brighter brownish orange, which passes also to the neck, 
and is sprinkled with black and specks of white ; the streak over the 
eye is also lighter. 
The young was altogether covered with fine down of a pale brown 
color ; the shafts or rather sheaths of the quills bluish ; the point of the 
bill just perceptible. 
Twenty species of this singular genus are now known to naturalists ; 
of these one only belongs to Europe, one to Africa, one to New Hol- 
land, two to India, and fifteen to America. 
The present species, though it approaches nearer in its plumage to 
that of Europe than any other of the tribe, differs from it in being 
entirely without the large spot of white on the wing; and in being 
considerably less. Its voice, and particular call, arc also entirely 
different. 
Farther to illustrate the history of this bird, the following notes are 
added, made at the time of dissection. Body, when stripped of the 
skin, less than that of the Wood Thrush; breast bone one inch in 
length ; second stomach strongly muscular, filled with fragments of 
pismires and grasshoppers ; skin of the bird loose, wrinkly and scarcely 
attached to the flesh ; flesh also loose, extremely tender ; bones thin and 
slender; sinews and muscles of the wing feeble; distance between the 
tips of both mandibles, when expanded, full two inches, length 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 part or os 
hyoides pass up the hind head, and reach to the front, like those of the 
Woodpecker ; which enables the bird to revert the lower part of the 
mouth in the act of seizing insects and in calling ; 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, jet personally it has never yet 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-tvill 's-widow, the Night-hawk, and the Whip-poor-will. 
Catesby, in the eighth plate of his 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 
