WHIP-POOR-WILL 
177 
their way toward the tropics by long, silent night 
flights. Common summer residents have gathered 
their families together and departed. Yet this frail, 
delicate visitor of swift and silent flight not only 
lingers beyond his time, but fills the night with the 
melody of summer. 
The Whip-Poor-Will is often heard but seldom 
seen, his retiring ways contrasting strongly with the 
conspicuous courses of the circling Night-hawk, to 
whom he is closely related. He sits and sings in 
the shade of the evening woods, always crouching 
lengthwise on his perch, his weak and tiny feet being 
incapable of supporting him in any other position. 
His white necktie is the only relief in his dull brown 
plumage, the fine and delicate markings of black 
and grey being generally invisible. When he darts 
silently after a passing insect the white on his outer 
tail feathers becomes conspicuous, and these marks 
distinguish him from his mate, whose equally dull 
plumage is relieved by light buff. He pursues his 
prey after the manner of the Kingbirds and other 
flycatchers, but there is no resonant snap when his 
enormous gape, with its imprisoning bristles, closes 
upon a Moth or Beetle, He returns swiftly and 
silently, not to a conspicuous and naked limb, like 
the Flycatchers of the open day, but to a shaded 
and sheltered branch, where the surrounding trees 
intensify the deepening gloom. The wait may be 
