20 
CAPHIMDI-GUS VOCIFERUS. 
believiug it to be that bird, and has ornamented hii* 
ii^^ure of the night hawk with a large bearded appendage, 
of which in nature it is entirely destitute. After him, 
Jlr Edwards, in his sixty-third plate, has in like manner 
figured the night hawk, also adding the bristles, and 
calling his figure the whip-poor-will, accompanying it 
with particulai-s of the notes, &c. of that bird, chiefly 
copied from Catesby. The next writer of eminence 
who has spoken of the whip-poor-will is Mr Pennant, 
justly considered as one of the most judicious and 
discriminating of English naturalists ; but, deceived by 
“ the lights he had,” he has, in his account of the 
short-winged goatsucker,* {Arct. Zool. p. 484,) given 
the size, markings of plumage, &c. of the chuck-willV 
widow ; and, in the succeeding account of his long- 
winged goatsucker, describes pretty accurately the 
night hawk. Both of these birds he considers to be 
the whip-poor-wiU, and as having the same notes and 
manners. 
After such authorities, it was less to be wondered at 
that many of our own citizens, and some of our natu- 
ralists and writers, should fall into the like mistake ; as 
copies of the works of those English naturalists are to 
be found in several of our colleges, and in some of out 
])ublic as well as private libraries. The means which 
the author of American Ornithology took to satisfy his 
own mind, and those of his friends, on this subject, 
were detailed at large, in a paper published about two 
years ago, in a periodical work of this city, with which 
extract I shall close my account of the present species. 
“ On the questidn. Is the whip-poor-will and thu 
night han k one and the same bird, or ar-e they reallf 
two distinct species ? there has long been an opposition 
of sentiment, and many fruitless disputes. Numbers o' 
sensible and observing people, whose intelligence 
long residence in the country entitle their opinion to 
• The figure is by mistake called the long-winged goatsucker* 
See Arctic Zoology, vol. ii. pi. 18. 
+ Cavrimulaus Americanus, night hawk or whip-poor-will’ 
Travels^. 0^1. ' 
