Length: Nearly 10 inches; wings 7 inches long.

General Appearance: A mottled brown bird with a narrow white band around throat, and white outer tail-feathers.

“He seems a lichen on a log,

A dead leaf on the ground.”

Male and Female: Soft brown, irregularly mottled and barred with black, buff, and white. Throat dark with a narrow curve of white in the male, and one of buff in the female. Beak short, slightly hooked, and very wide (1½ inches), with long bristles at the sides. Breast dark, belly white. Middle tail-feathers mottled brown; half of six other tail-feathers white, which are visible in flight. Female has narrower white tips to outer tail-feathers.

Note: Whip'-poor-will, whip'-poor-will, whip'-poor-will, uttered rapidly, monotonously, lugubriously, continuously. My sister counted 275 repetitions of his note given without a pause. To some people the sound is unendurable. When near the bird, I have heard him give a soft chuck between the repetition of the word whip-poor-will. He is associated in my mind with bright moonlight evenings, for it is then he is most vociferous. He sings, also, early in the morning.

Flight: Swift, yet noiseless; almost as uncanny as his note.

Habitat: In woods and open groves, where one may come upon him both at night and during the daytime sitting lengthwise on a log or branch instead of crosswise.

WHIP-POOR-WILL

Nest: No nest is made, but two dull-colored, mottled eggs are laid on the ground or on dead leaves.

Range: Eastern North America. Breeds from southern Canada to the northern parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia, and from the Plains eastward; winters from eastern South Carolina and the southern Gulf States to Central America. The CHUCK-WILL’S-WIDOW is a resident of our southeastern states; the POOR-WILL of our western states.

The whip-poor-will is too interesting and useful a bird to be disregarded. He has been widely disliked and even superstitiously dreaded because of his weird notes. He is, however, of especial interest to scientists because of his nocturnal habits and his value as a destroyer of insects. Mr. Forbush calls him “an animated insect trap,” with an “enormous mouth surrounded by long bristles which form a wide fringe about the yawning cavity.”[97] The whip-poor-will is believed to be the greatest enemy of night-moths; he eats other insects, also, in great quantities.

The chuck-will’s-widow is even more interesting than the whip-poor-will. Mr. W. L. McAtee writes of the bird as follows:

“Like other species of its family, it lays only two eggs, which may be deposited almost anywhere on the forest floor, there being no nest. Intrusion on this spot usually results in the bird moving the eggs, which it carries in its mouth. Although the bird is only 12 inches long, the mouth fully extended forms an opening at least 2 by 3½ inches in size. It is but natural, therefore, that the bird should prey upon some of the largest insects. Not only are large insects captured and swallowed, but even small birds, in two cases warblers.

“Despite the fact that the chuck-will’s-widow occasionally devours small insectivorous birds, it must be reckoned a useful species. It is probable that birds are not deliberately sought, but that they are taken instinctively, as would be a moth or other large insect coming within reach of that capacious mouth.”[98]