s eye to the spot, noted
how difficult it was for him to make out there, in full view upon the
dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the bird returned after
being disturbed, she would alight within a few inches of her eggs,
and then, after a moment's pause, hobble awkwardly upon them.

After the young had appeared, all the wit of the bird came into play. I
was on hand the next day, I think. The mother bird sprang up when I was
within a pace of her, and in doing so fanned the leaves with her wings
till they sprang up, too; as the leaves started the young started, and,
being of the same color, to tell which was the leaf and which the bird
was a trying task to any eye. I came the next day, when the same
tactics were repeated. Once a leaf fell upon one of the young birds and
nearly hid it. The young are covered with a reddish down, like a young
partridge, and soon follow their mother about. When disturbed, they
gave but one leap, then settled down, perfectly motionless and stupid,
with eyes closed. The parent bird, on these occasions, made frantic
efforts to decoy me away from her young. She would fly a few paces and
fall upon her breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would run
through her tremulous outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a
sharp eye out the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and, if it did
not, she was quickly cured, and, moving about to some other point,
tried to draw my attention as before. When followed she always alighted
upon the ground, dropping down in a sudden peculiar way. The second or
third day both old and young had disappeared.

The whip-poor-will walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which is as awkward
as a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead her young about the
woods. The latter, I think, move by leaps and sudden spurts, their
protective coloring shielding them most effectively. 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." Wilson's description of the young
is very accurate, as its downy covering does look precisely like a
"slight mouldiness." Returning a few moments afterward to the spot to
get a pencil he had forgotten, he could find neither ol