THE WHIP-POOR-WILL 
By T. GILBERT PEARSON 
The National Association oe Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 73 
While walking along a country road one evening after the sun had 
set and darkness had all but fallen, I suddenly discovered some object 
on the ground a few yards ahead. At almost the same moment it rose, 
and, on slow-moving wings, flew over the fence and disappeared in the 
gloom of the woods. The flight was so silent, and the wings were so 
broad, it was difficult to believe that it was not a great moth that had 
just departed from view. I knew, however, that I had disturbed a 
Whip-poor-will in the midst of its twilight dust-bath. Evidently it had 
been trying for several minutes to find just the right spot, for there in 
the soft earth were three slight but distinct hollows, such as only a dust- 
ing bird would make. 
Soon afterward I heard it calling, or perhaps it was its mate, zvJiip- 
poor-zviip zvhip-poor-zmll ; the shouts came ringing through the darkness, 
six, eight, or perhaps twenty times repeated. Then, after a pause, the 
plaintive but stirring notes would again come up from 
The Song the old apple orchard, and fill all the space round 
about the farm-house. The still summer night seemed 
to belong to this strange bird of the shadows, for its rhythmical cry took 
possession of the silences, and filled the listener with contented exhilara- 
tion. All attempts to approach it that night were futile, for its big, 
bright eyes evidently penetrated the shadows with ease, and, long before 
we could even make out its form, it would fly to another perch several 
rods away. Only when it announced its presence by calling did we know 
its position. Two or three times, however, we came near enough to hear 
the low note, something like chuck, which immediately precedes the first 
loud zvhip of its song. 
Ernest Ingersoll, in his book “Wit of the Wild,” says a Whip-poor- 
will, while singing, “will often make a beginning and then seem to stop 
and try it over again, like a person practicing a new tune; but these 
„ . interruptions really mean so many leaps into the air. 
To Eaf"^ perhaps frantic dodges and a somersault or two, 
for the snatching and devouring of some lusty insect 
that objects to the process.” We listened for this, but all the calls we 
heard were complete throughout each performance. It was fullv two 
hours after the sun had set before the last note of this mysterious night- 
flyer was heard. Just before dawn it called again several times, and the 
farmer’s wife said she feared it was sitting on the stone door-step. She 
was somewhat disturbed about this, and intimated that if it were there the 
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