“Four birds there are that live under one roof, so to speak, for they
belong to one order divided into three different families. They are
perfectly familiar to most of us who have lived in the real country, and
yet they awaken our curiosity anew every season when they return. These
birds are the Whip-poor-will, Chimney Swift, Nighthawk, and
Humming-bird. The two first return to New England late in April; the two
last during the first part of May, but it is better for us to take them
all together now in April so as to be ready to recognize the first one
that comes.
“The _Whip-poor-will_ comes first. It is a bird of the woods; in size a
little less than the Robin, but of a build peculiar to its own family,
long and low, a contrast heightened by its short legs and its habit of
sitting length-wise on a limb and close to it. In short, it does not
perch, it ‘squats.’ Its general colour is black, white, and buff, much
streaked and mottled. Its tail is _round_, half of the three outer
feathers white, giving the effect of a white spot.
“All of you children of this wooded hill country know this bird that
flies about the house and across the fields to the woods before dawn or
soon after dark, making no more noise than the bats, until, stopping to
rest, he mechanically jerks out his name,
‘Whip-poor-will-Whip-poor-will-Chuck!’ So lonely and mournful does the
cry sound in the distance that many weird stories have been told about
the bird. But when the call comes close at hand, it is more cheerful,
though always startling.
“This bird builds no nest, but lays its pair of dull white eggs, so
marked that they blend with the earth like lichens and mosses, on the
bare ground, or at best among a few leaves. But rash as this seems, the
protective colour that nature has given to the parents, eggs, and young
serves to keep them as safe as many another bird in a well-woven tree
nest.
“Then, too, aside from its picturesque qualities, the Whip-poor-will, as
Mr. Forbush says of it, ‘is an animated insect trap. Its enormous mouth
is surrounded by long bristles which form a wide fringe about a yawning
cavity, and the bird flies rather low among the trees and over the
undergrowth, snapping up nocturnal insects in flight. It is, perhaps,
the greatest enemy of night-moths, but is quite as destructive to May
beetles and other leaf-eating beetles.’