CAPRIMULG US VOCIFER US. * 
WHIP-POOR-WILL. 
[Plate XLI. — Fig. 1, Male. — Fig. 2, Female. — Fig. 3, 
Young. ] 
Peale’s Museum, JYo. T72], male, 7722, female. 
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 hut 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 ano- 
ther. I trust that those best acquainted with him will bear wit- 
ness to the fidelity of the portrait. 
On or about the twenty-fifth of April, if the season be not un- 
commonly cold, the Whip-poor-will is first heard in this part 
of Pennsylvania, in the evening, as the dusk of twilight com- 
mences, 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 al- 
most all with great interest. At first they issue from some retired 
part of the woods, the glen or mountain; in a few evenings per- 
haps we hear them from the adjoining coppice — the garden fence 
— the road before the door, and even from the roof of the dwel- 
♦ Caprimulgus virginiauus, Vieiii.. Ois. de Sept. pi. 23. 
