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BY PROFESSOR FROST.
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THE WHIP-POOR-WILL.
This singular bird is found throughout the greater portion of the United States, and by the notes from which it derives its name is known to almost every farmer. The species was long considered identical with the Night Hawk; but this fallacy was fully exposed by Wilson. The Whip-poor-will appears in the Middle States toward the end of April, when its low, sad wail, may be heard at evening along the creeks and by the woods of the country. So peculiarly mournful is this sound that the ignorant almost invariably consider it an omen of approaching evil. By the Indians it is regarded as a spirit-voice, boding death or perhaps national calamity. The bird articulates pretty distinctly the syllables whip-poor-will, the first and last being uttered with great emphasis. A kind of chuckling sound sometimes precedes the principal tone. At these times the bird is generally on the wing, flying close to the ground in the manner of swallows, and sometimes skimming around houses. The notes of the Whip-poor-will are continued until about midnight, and on fine moonlight nights until morning. The shady banks of creeks and rivulets are favorite haunts. During the day they remain in the darkest parts of the forest, hushed to silence like owls, and apparently annoyed at the presence of sunlight. The cry of the Whip-poor-will is not heard after the middle of June; and early in September it departs for the south.
The Whip-poor-will is nine inches and a-half long, of a beautiful mottled-brown, relieved by other colors. It is noted for an extravagantly large mouth, beset on each side with thick bristles, and for a very strong bill. The female is less in size than the male, and rather lighter colored. She begins to lay toward the middle of May, choosing for this purpose a dry situation, covered with brush, decayed leaves, etc., but building no nest. The eggs are two in number, dark and marbled. The young appear early in June.
The Goatsucker, Night Hawk, and seventeen other species belong to the same genus as the Whip-poor-will. Of these fifteen belong to America. Nuttall has the following remarks on some of these.
“But if superstition takes alarm at our familiar and simple species, what would be thought by the ignorant of a South American kind, large as the Wood Owl, which, in the lonely forests of Demerara, about midnight, breaks out, lamenting like one in deep distress, and in a tone more dismal even than the painful hexachord of the slothful Ai. The sounds like the expiring sighs of some agonizing victim, begin with a high, loud note, ‘ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! ha! ha!’ each tone falling lower and lower, till the last syllable is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two between this reiterated tale of seeming madness.
“Four other species of the Goat-sucker, according to Waterton, also inhabit the tropical wilderness, among which is included our present subject. Figure to yourself the surprise and wonder of the stranger who takes up his solitary abode for the first night amidst these awful and interminable forests, when, at twilight, he begins to be assailed familiarly with a spectral equivocal bird, approaching within a few yards, and then accosting him with ‘who-are-you, who—who—who are you?’ Another approaches, and bids him, as if a slave under the lash, ‘work-away, work—work—work-away!’ A third, mournfully cries, ‘willy come go, willy—willy—willy come go!’ and as you get among the highlands, our old acquaintance vociferates, ‘whip-poor-will, whip—whip—whip-poor-will!’ It is, therefore, not surprising that such unearthly sounds should be considered in the light of supernatural forebodings issuing from spectres in the guise of birds.”