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Updated: May 19, 2025
"Oh, my!" cried Dodo, waking suddenly, "that must be a Whip-poor-will, for he called his own name as plain as the Chickadee does; and listen! there are more of them all up the hill." Soon they passed Rap's house and left him at the gate.
A quaint old ballad, said to have been written about that time, gives a description of this Dark Day: Copyright Harper and Brothers "The Whip-poor-will sung notes most shrill, Doves to their cots retreated, And all the fowls, excepting owls, Upon their roosts were seated.
The early hour, the gait at which the stranger urged his horse, the manner in which he passed the open and inviting door of the Whip-Poor-Will, proclaimed him a messenger, who probably bore some communication of importance from the Government of the Colony to the younger Heathcote, who filled the highest station of official authority in that distant settlement.
The sea breeze sang its lullaby through the boughs of a luxuriant orange tree near, and silence seemed guardian spirit of the beautiful spot, when a whip-poor-will whirred through the air, and, perching on the snowy brow of the Aphrodite, began his plaintive night-hymn.
"It would be well," he added, "to let this man go in again, as usual, and for him to tarry in the lodges, giving notice to the gentle ones of our approach, until we call him out, by signal, to consult. You know the cry of a crow, friend, from the whistle of the whip-poor-will?"
"He looks like a pretty big bird," said Dodo. "How long is he? Is there only one in his family?" "He has a brother called the Whip-poor-will, that we should meet very soon." The Nighthawk Length ten inches. Mottled black and rusty above. Barred on the under parts with black and white or buff.
Wilson once came upon the mother bird and her brood in the woods, and, though they were at his very feet, was so baffled by the concealment of the young that he was about to give up the search, much disappointed, when he perceived something "like a slight mouldiness among the withered leaves, and, on stooping down, discovered it to be a young whip-poor-will, seemingly asleep."
The whip-poor-will that all evening had been mourning on the hillside, and the loon that had called across the water, were hushed. The faint stars looked down on the silent blackness of the woods and the gray mists of the water beyond.
A whip-poor-will in a distant swamp sounded his plaintive call. Randy could not have analyzed the instinct which sent him back to Becky. It was not in the least to spy upon her, nor upon Dalton. He only knew that he could not sleep, that something drew him on and on, as Romeo was drawn perchance to Capulet's orchard. He came out from under the trees to other hills. He was still on his own land.
And some day we perchance find the two dirt colored eggs on the bare ground, or the tiny young, like bits of rabbit fur, with only the earth beneath them and the sky above them, apparently as deserted and destitute as Romulus and Remus; and all this adds wonderfully to our interest in this strange bird, which is so common in the June woods. The whip-poor-will is much like the nighthawk.
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