WHIP-POOR-WILL. 
453 
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 natural- 
ist who has written on our birds, yet personally it has never 
yet been described by any writer with whose works I am ac- 
quainted. 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-will’ 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 orna- 
mented his figure of the Night-hawk with a large bearded ap- 
pendage, of which in nature it is entirely destitute. After him 
Mr. 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 particulars 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 
