20 CAPRIMULGUS VOCIFERUS. 
believing it to be that bird, and has ornamented his 
figure of the night hawk with a large bearded appendage, 
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 goatsucker,* (Arct. Zool. p. 434,) given 
the size, markings of plumage, &c. of the chuck-will’s- 
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-will, 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 our 
public as well as private libraries. The means w hich 
the author of American Ornithology took to satisfy his 
own mind, and those of his friends, on this subject, 
w ere detailed at large, in a paper published about two 
years ago, in a periodical w ork of this city, with w hich 
extract I shall close my account of the present species. 
“ On the question, Is the whip-poor-w ill and the 
night haw r k one and the same bird, or are they really 
two distinct species ? there has long been an opposition 
of sentiment, and many fruitless disputes. Numbers of 
sensible and observing people, whose intelligence and 
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. 
f Caprimulgus Americanus, night hawk or whip-poor-will. 
Travels , p. 292. 
