Whin

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

. See Gorse Whip-poor-will, a bird of the goatsucker family. The plumage is mottled, barred, and streaked with black, buff, and white in a way difficult to describe. The mouth is short, wide, and weak. The bill is surrounded with bristles, the more readily to catch insects which are taken at evening twilight on the wing. The whip-poor-will ranges throughout eastern North America , wintering from Florida southward. It nests on the ground or on leaves in thickets or even in open places, possibly in the shade of an oak. Eggs, two; dull white, with lilac markings and gray spots. When disturbed, the whip-poor-will rises with a silent broad expanse of wing and courses away into the underwood in a sort of ghostly fashion that unsettles one almost as much as the sudden spring of a partridge or a covey of quails. At sunset the whip-poor-will emerges from concealment and courses swiftly near the ground taking his supper of insects. A little later or between flights he perches on a low limb and calls whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, with an energy not to be expected from so shy and soft-mannered a bird. The call is not so difficult to imitate as is a preliminary cluck before each call, so indistinct as to be heard only when the listener is near the performer. It is suggestive that something in the bird's throat is out of order. When the last glow of twilight has faded, the whip-poor-will retires for the night. It is heard and seen less often at dawn of day.