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. Both are of about the same
size and color. Both sit lengthwise on limbs. Both are weird creatures
that sleep by day and hunt by night. But the nighthawk has a V-shaped
patch of white on his throat; the large mouth of the whip-poor-will is
fringed with bristles. The nighthawk has a patch of white extending
through his long wings; the whip-poor-will has none. The nighthawk is not
usually heard after the twilight hours; the whip-poor-will is heard much
later. The whip-poor-will calls its name aloud, sometimes startlingly
close to the chamber window; the nighthawk only screams.

* * * * *

We cautiously approach a sand flat and are fortunate to see one of the
sights of a lifetime. The mud turtle is preparing to lay her eggs in the
moist sand. She digs the hole almost entirely with her hind feet, using
first one and then the other, working rapidly for perhaps eight or ten
minutes until the hole is about six inches in diameter and apparently
about three or four inches deep. Then she draws in her head, and drops,
at intervals of two or three minutes, five eggs into the hole. That done,
she scrapes the moist sand back into the hole, pressing it and patting it
from time to time with her hind feet. This process takes much longer than
digging the hole. When it is done to her satisfaction she waddles towards
the creek. You might have some trouble to find the eggs but the skunk
often gets them. Does the mother turtle watch over them till they are
hatched by the sun or is it a mere picked-up crowd of youngsters that we
sometimes see in the early fall sitting with her on a boulder in the
pond?