[j. d. worthington]

Yes, I recall that point coming up in a discussion with Tinsel at one point -- that they were using it to "nurse" Wilbur and his brother during those early months; after which, one assumes, the quantity of blood needed (at least for the brother) became far too much, and required something as large as a cow or bull; to have continued feeding them from their mother and grandfather would have killed either or both before Wilbur was ready to take on the task appointed, in effect.

A few more things which may be of interest:

As Old Whateley lies dying:

After a pause, during which the vlock of whippoorwills outside adjusted their cries to the altered tempo [of his breathing] while some indications of the strange hill noises came from afar off

-- p. 127

indicating a linkage not only between the hill-noises (or what makes them) and Wilbur and his twin, but the entire Whateley clan, something which may also find a hint of confirmation in the phrasing describing the cries of Wilbur's brother atop Sentinel Hill:

From what black wlls of Acherontic fear of feeling, from what unplumbled gulfs of extra-cosmic consciousness or obscure, long-latent heredity, were those half-articulate thunder-croakings drawn?

-- p. 171 (emphasis added)

There is also Lovecraft's choice of wording when Lavinia disappears/dies:

That Hallowe'en the hill noises sounded louder than ever, and fire burned on Sentinel Hill as usual; but people paid more attention to the rhythmical screaming of vast flocks of unnaturally belated whippoorwills which seemed to be assembled near the unlighted Whateley farmhouse. After midnight their shrill notes burst into a kind of pandaemoniac cachinnation which filled all the countryside, and not until dawn did they finally quiet down.

-- pp. 128-29

Not only do we see here the possible relationship between the Whateleys and the unseen presences (and I think that is a note which should be explored at some time, given Hoadley's sermon at the beginning of the tale), but also I disagree with Joshi's note in The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft that "cachinnation" here "seems more broadly to be merely a loud chattering" (p. 129). While I agree that this is indeed one of the associations intended, I would contend that the mocking aspect of "loud or immoderate laughter" is also very present, and in fact adds considerably to the horror (and pity) of Lavinia's death, as even the forces which have used her and to which she is related mock her in her final moments.

Also, on the point of the whippoorwills, there are some hints that Lovecraft may have been using the idea of psychopomps more broadly here, as well; so that the souls they seek for prey are not merely those of humans (something indicated by their attempts to capture those of Wilbur and his brother), but of all living things. This seems indicated by their loud cries following the attack on the Elmer Frye barn and the slaughter of the beasts inside (but before the attack on the farmhouse and the Frye family), for instance (p. 149). That they are, however, limited to the souls of terrestrial life would seem indicated by their reaction as Wilbur's soul (apparently) leaves his body:

Outside the window the shrilling of the whippoorwills had suddenly ceased, and above the murmurs of the gathering crowd there came the sound of a panic-struck whirring and fluttering. Against the moon vaast clouds of feathery watchers rose and raced from sight, frantic at that which they had sought for prey.

-- p. 141

Here it may be well to recall how much more of the human there is in Wilbur than in his brother; for when they seek to catch the soul of the latter, the result is quite different:

Dogs howled from the distance, green grass and foliage wilted to a curious, sickly yellow-grey, and over field and forest were scattered the bodies of dead whippoorwills.

-- p. 172

In this last, in fact, we may see not only the total alienness of Wilbur's brother's "soul", but (perhaps) the direct intervention of his father to protect his favored son's soul from desecration, destroying those who had sought to convey it to the underworld (keeping in mind, of course, the original use of the psychopomp from Graeco-Roman myth).

This idea, incidentally, of the commonality of the souls of all terrestrial life, would seem to be a fictional adumbration of something he had addressed long before, in his letters to the Transatlantic Circulator, published as "In Defence of Dagon":

To argue that one may prove the existence of the human "soul" from the fact that corpses do not weep when the orchestra plays "Hearts and Flowers", is somehting hardly calculated to disturb the assurance of the mechanistic materialist! Mr. Wickenden avoids the ticklish question of the lower animal world. Here we have organisms for which not even the boldest theist tries to claim "souls" -- yet among them we find psychic phenomena of a very advanced order. Even a Beethoven symphony affects many animals strongly -- a case where Mr. W. would find difficulty in tracing the physico-chemical action connecting the sounds and the manifestations. One might ask, to the confounding of those who aver that men have "souls" whilst beasts have not, just what the difference may be betwixt the effect of music on man and on beast; and also just how the evolving organism began to acquire "spirit" after it crossed the boundary betwixt advanced ape and primitive human? It is rather hard to believe in "soul" when one has not a jot of evidence for its existence; when all the psychic life of man is demonstrated to be precisely analagous to that of other animals -- presumably "soulless".

-- Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 170-71