Chapter C: W. G. Eifrig (1919) mentions “a unique experience” with a

whippoorwill, which, displaying unexpected aggressiveness, darted repeatedly at his head.

It has been surmised that the whippoorwill uses its capacious mouth to carry its eggs, and even its young, out of danger when its nest has been discovered. There is no satisfactory evidence that the bird employs its mouth in this way, but it has been seen, on two occasions at least, carrying a young bird through the air held between its legs. J. H. Bowles (1895) says: “I flushed a whippoorwill that rose with a baby bird clutched firmly _between her thighs_,” and Bendire (1895) quotes H. W. Flint as follows: “I once, and once only, saw a female (the male is never present at the nest) carry a young bird about a rod, but can not say she used her bill, and don’t think she did, but I am almost sure the claws and legs only were used, as the young was hugged close to the body.”

The whippoorwill is fond of taking dust baths. When driving after dark we sometimes catch sight of one as it starts up from its bath on a country road, and, as it flies off and our headlights pick it up, the white tail feathers, if the bird is a male, shine out for an instant. Forbush (1927) says: “Mr. Stanley H. Bromley of Southbridge, Massachusetts, tells me that a farmer there placed a large tray of dry wood ashes on the ground, and whippoorwills came there at night to dust in it.”

Wilson (1831) states: “The inner edge of the middle claw is pectinated, and, from the circumstances of its being frequently found with small portions of down adhering to the teeth, is probably employed as a comb to rid the plumage of its head of vermin.”

_Voice._--If the whippoorwill “should sing by day, when every goose is cackling,” the song might lose some of its witchery; we do not know; the bird sings in the dark, or when darkness is coming on fast, and the singer is invisible or almost invisible among the shadows. The song at a little distance comes to the ear as a penetrating whisper of the bird’s name, repeated perfectly regularly, time after time with scarcely a pause between, at a rather rapid rate--about once a second. The fourth note, a _cluck_ before the _whip-poor-will_, is heard usually only when the bird is fairly near us, although we may hear it at a distance of 200 yards under favorable circumstances. The syllable _will_ carries farthest of all the syllables.

It is rare to hear any material variation in the song, but there are individual birds that regularly sing an unusual form, and sometimes a bird will introduce occasionally one abnormal phrase into his singing.

Simeon Pease Cheney (1891), speaking from the point of view of music, says: “In the courageous repetition of his name he accents the first and last syllables, the last most; always measuring his song with the same rhythm, while very considerably varying the melody--which latter fact is discovered only by most careful attention. Plain, simple, and stereotyped as his song appears, marked variations are introduced in the course of it. The whippoorwill uses nearly all the intervals in the natural scale, even the octave. I have never detected a chromatic tone.” Describing altercations between two or more birds, he says:

These altercations are sometimes very amusing. Three
whippoorwills, two males and a female, indulged in them for
several evenings one season, in my garden. They came just
at dark, and very soon a spirited contest began. Frequently
they flew directly upward, one at a time. Occasionally one
flew down into the patch near me, put out his wings, opened
his big mouth, and hissed like a goose disturbed in the
dark. But, the most peculiar, the astonishing feature of
the contention was the _finale_. Toward the close of the
trial of speed and power, the unwieldy name was dropped,
and they rattled on freely with the same rhythm that the
name would have required, alternating in their rushing
triplets, going faster and faster, louder and louder, to
the end.

The bird is remarkable on account of the regularity of its song and the great number of times it repeats the _whip-poor-will_ without a pause. From 50 to 100 repetitions are not uncommon. Forbush (1927) says: “John Burroughs, however, made a count which so far as I know exceeds all others. He records that he heard a bird ‘lay upon the back of poor will’ 1088 blows with only a rarely perceptible pause here and there, as if to take breath.”

F. Seymour Hersey (1923) writes: “The Whip-poor-will sings most continuously from dusk till about 9.30 p. m. and from 2.00 a. m. till dawn. During the intervening hours only an occasional song is heard. The song season lasts from their arrival in spring until late July or early August. Then there is a marked falling off in the number of singing birds heard until toward the end of August or early in September an increase in the number of singers is again noted. The songs of these late birds often lack the energy that characterizes the spring performance but a good many continue to sing until they leave for the south. My latest singing bird was noted September 24, 1901.” These dates refer to eastern Massachusetts.

Of the possibility of the female singing, he says: “June 15 a Whip-poor-will alighted on the fence and uttered its ‘chuck’ note, which usually precedes the regular song, repeating it a number of times but not giving a note of the usual ‘Whip-poor-will’ call. It also did the same while on the wing. This bird was supposed to be a female as no conspicuous light area was visible on the tail. If so, she was capable of singing the same as the male for I later heard and saw her sing, both from the fence and while on the ground in the middle of the road. She finally flew and was followed by another bird which may have been her mate.”

Of the whippoorwill’s minor notes, we have seen above that the growling _gr-gr-gr_ or _gaw-gaw-gaw_ is presumably associated with courtship. I have never heard the note except when two (or more) birds were together, on or near the ground. This note suggests a little a note of the female woodcock, which is used under similar circumstances. The whirring _whup-whup-whirr_ is evidently an alarm note.

A. Dawes DuBois (1911) mentions two other notes, evidently of alarm. He says: “She fluttered from the spot as she had done the previous day, but this time uttering a very low hissing or ‘soughing’ sound,” and again, “She kept vigilant watch, however, at a short distance, moving about near the ground with a remarkably noiseless flight but uttering a ‘chip’ or ‘whit’ similar to that of a domestic chick.”

If we are outdoors at the end of the day, when the sun has gone down and all the ways are darkened, if we are walking along a quiet country road fringed by woods and open fields, or, in a canoe, are drifting down a stream flowing slowly past farmland--pastures, stone walls, orchards--and if we listen, what do we hear? If it is summer, the bird songs are gradually fading away as the birds fall asleep, the robin chorus lessens when the light grows dim, and when it is almost dark a field sparrow may sing for the last time before night comes. If it is autumn we hear little bird song, only a short period of chipping and clucking before the birds settle for the night, and after that only the insects that will sing the night through. But let us listen. Was that a whippoorwill? Do we hear a whippoorwill, or do we imagine we hear one because the scene has changed to a world of shadows--the whippoorwill’s world--and association has brought the bird to our mind, and its song has come to our ears? The song is faint and comes from far away. Perhaps we did not hear it; perhaps there was no song to hear.

This is a peculiarity of the whippoorwill’s song; it is so bound up with association that we are sometimes misled. It is the same with the bluebird when we listen for its song over the brown fields of March.

_Field marks._--The whippoorwill and the nighthawk appear very much alike when sitting either on the ground or along a horizontal branch of a tree, for in such situations it is difficult to see the points where the two birds differ. The whippoorwill is bristly about the mouth; the nighthawk is not. The tips of the whippoorwill’s folded wings do not come to the end of the rounded tail, whereas the nighthawk’s wings project beyond the forked tail. The whippoorwill has a narrow line of white on the upper breast. The corresponding mark on the nighthawk is broader and includes the throat. Perhaps the best mark for diagnosis is the pale, barred sides of the nighthawk. For purposes of field identification this part of the whippoorwill may be said to be unbarred.

In the air the distinguishing mark of the nighthawk is a conspicuous spot of white in the wing. The whippoorwill lacks this mark. The flight of the two birds (see above) is very different and identifies them at a glance.

The chuck-will’s-widow, although similar to the whippoorwill in plumage, is a much larger bird.

_Enemies._--The clearing away of a large part of the North American wilderness during the past two centuries or so has not materially affected the whippoorwill; it drove the bird back from the settlements a little way, farther and farther as the towns grew in extent and became the great cities of today, but at the present time, not far beyond the city limits, whippoorwills find miles and miles of country wild and secluded enough for their breeding purposes. Fifteen miles from the city of Boston, Mass., for example, as well as within a mile or two of many small towns in the State, the bird is still abundant, nesting on the dry wooded ridges and eskers.

This ability to flourish as man advanced into the country, when so many birds failed to hold their own, may be accounted for by the habits and equipment of the whippoorwill, which, when it moves about, is “bescreened in night” and is so obscurely colored that we may say “the mask of night is on its face” even in the daytime, as it lies motionless on a carpet of dead leaves.

If the bird should be discovered and attacked, we may imagine how often the whippoorwill, with its marvelous powers of flight, may escape hawk, owl, or fox.

_Fall._--We rarely see whippoorwills in autumn, but as we hear them sing not infrequently at this season we know that they sometimes linger in New England almost to the end of September, a time when hard frosts are at hand, which will either kill the insects or hasten them into retirement.

Taverner and Swales (1907) report an unusual gathering of whippoorwills on Point Pelee, Ontario. They say: “In our various September visits we have usually found them more or less common, but at that season they are much quieter, and seldom do more than call a few times in the early evening and then cease. Sometimes one will be heard again through the night, but more often not. September, 1905, beginning the 4th, we saw from one to six until the 13th, when a great flight of them appeared on the Point. That day, in the red cedar thickets near the extremity of the Point, we flushed thirty between twelve and half-past one in the afternoon.”

_Winter._--George Nelson, who has known the whippoorwill for years in its winter quarters on the east coast of Florida, tells me that the bird is pretty evenly distributed in the country about Sebastian, frequenting chiefly the ridges and hammocks where, during the day, it rests on the ground or on the trunk of a fallen tree. Not infrequently, as Mr. Nelson has been driving after dark along U. S. Route 1, a bird has started up from almost beneath the wheels of his car and has flown off in the glare of the headlights. He says that the bird is not in song during winter, but just before it starts northward, late in March, it sings for a few evenings, and that its departure invariably coincides with the arrival of the chuck-will’s-widow.

Each evening during my stay at Sebastian with Mr. Nelson in mid-February 1931, just as it was beginning to grow dark, a whippoorwill appeared in the dooryard, a clearing in a dense hammock on the shore of the Indian River. The bird perched lengthwise here and there on the thick limbs of a live oak, well up in the big tree, but clearly visible from the ground, and made frequent sallies out into the air, sometimes sweeping clear away from the tree, sometimes only flitting among its branches, returning either to the perch from which it had flown, or to another one. Presumably these sallies were made in pursuit of flying insects--there was a businesslike air in the bird’s behavior--but there was no sound of any snapping of the beak audible to me as I stood near the foot of the tree. Our first intimation that the bird had arrived from its day’s seclusion was the sound of a low _chuck_ repeated at short intervals. The bird gave this note from its perch and from the air; it was very similar to the introductory note in the whippoorwill song, but a little sharper. As the bird flew about, it sailed a good deal, wheeling around with some tilting from one side to the other, the wings held out straight and flat from the body with no, or very little, bend at the wrist joint. I was strangely reminded of the flight of a shearwater--the whippoorwill seeming to avoid the branches as the shearwater avoids the tops of the waves, tilting over them as it sails.

This was when the bird was moving slowly, but at times it increased its speed and executed the most intricate maneuvers, appearing and disappearing among the branches, ever changing its direction, either sailing or flapping its wings, swerving sharply from side to side, heeling over till one wing pointed nearly to the zenith and the other to the earth, then snapping back to an even keel. It shot straight upward, dived head downward, and doubled back, twisting and gyrating with such rapidity that it seemed to be tumbling about in the air. The turns were so quick and the pace so reckless that the bird appeared in a frenzy and in danger of dashing itself against a limb of the tree, yet from the midst of these complicated evolutions it instantly righted itself and, with a flash of wings, settled flat and motionless on its perch.

Although there was the appearance of a lack of caution in these mad dashes among the network of branches, we were convinced, as we watched, that the bird governed its movements with perfect precision, with the acme of coordination.

The flight seemed silent; even when the bird passed within a few feet of my head, I heard no sound. It appeared to be alone, and after remaining for ten minutes or so, it flew off, and we heard or saw no more of it until the next evening.

When we flashed a light on it, the eye gleamed back a bright orange.

Mr. Nelson said that earlier in the winter the behavior of the bird had been different. It came about the house every evening for a while, visiting a small tree (_Assonia_) to which insects were attracted by big clusters of open flowers. This tree was about 10 feet tall, with large leaves but plenty of open space between the branches. The bird went to the ground after each flight into the tree, and it appeared to Mr. Nelson that the insects, as they flew among the flowers, could best be seen against the sky from this point. The bird did not return to this tree after the flowers had faded.

During a second visit to Florida, more than a month later, I saw, presumably, the same bird again. It acted exactly as it had before, perching, indeed, on the identical spot on the limb of the live oak that had been a favorite perch in February. On this occasion also only one bird visited the tree, and while feeding was silent except for the low chuck. On March 24, after the bird had been to the tree and had gone away, I heard him singing off in the hammock. This singing on his winter quarters indicated that he felt spring was here, and it was time to leave for his summer home in the north.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--United States and southern Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, south in winter to El Salvador.

_Breeding range._--The breeding range of the eastern whippoorwill extends =north= rarely to central Saskatchewan (Prince Albert); southern Manitoba (Gypsumville, Lake St. Martin, Shoal Lake, and Winnipeg); northern Michigan (McMillan and Sault Ste. Marie); southern Ontario (Sudbury, Algonquin Park, and Ottawa); southern Quebec (Montreal and Sherbrooke); rarely northern Maine (Presque Isle); and rarely southern New Brunswick (Scotch Lake). The =eastern= limits extend southward from this point along the Atlantic coast to eastern Virginia (Ashland and Lawrenceville); hence southwest through the interior to North Carolina (Raleigh and Highrock); and Georgia (Young Harris and Atlanta). =South= to northern Georgia (Atlanta); northern Alabama (Lookout Mountain and Sand Mountain); central Arkansas (Clinto and Big Piney Creek); and Texas (Troup). =West= to eastern Texas (Troup); northwestern Arkansas (Rogers and Pearidge); eastern Kansas (Ottawa and Topeka); eastern Nebraska (Peru, Omaha, and Neligh); southeastern South Dakota (Vermillion); Minnesota (St. Cloud, Fosston, and Williams); southwestern Manitoba (Treesbank); and rarely central Saskatchewan (Prince Albert).

Closely related subspecies, Stephens’s whippoorwill (_A. v. arizonae_), is found chiefly in Mexico, but in summer it has been recorded =north= to Arizona (Bradshaw Mountains, Sierra Ancha, Mount Graham, and the Chiricahua Mountains); New Mexico (Turkey Creek, Blank Range, and Fort Bayard); and southwestern Texas (Chisos Mountains).

_Winter range._--The winter range of the _entire_ species is =north= to southern Sonora (Alamos); southern Texas (San Patricio and Port Arthur); rarely Louisiana (Baton Rouge); southern Alabama (Fairhope); northwestern Florida (Pensacola and St. Marks); and east-central South Carolina (Mount Pleasant). =East= to east-central South Carolina (Mount Pleasant); Georgia (Savannah); eastern Florida (Amelia Island, Orlando, Lake Worth, and Royal Palm Hammock); British Honduras (Toledo District); and Costa Rica (probably San Jose). =South= to Costa Rica (probably San Jose and Puntarenas); El Salvador (Rio San Miguel, Puerto del Triunfo, and La Libertad); Oaxaca (Tehuantepec); and southern Jalisco (Colima Volcano). =West= to Jalisco (Colima Volcano and Bolanos Volcano); probably western Durango (Salto); and southern Sonora (Alamos).

_Spring migration._--Early dates of spring arrival are: North Carolina--Louisburg, March 19; Weaverville, March 23; Raleigh, March 28. Virginia--Variety Mills, March 29; Lawrenceville, March 30. District of Columbia--Washington, April 1. Maryland--Mardela Springs, March 29; Cambridge, April 12. Pennsylvania--Williamsport, April 21; Berwyn, April 22; Philadelphia, April 22. New Jersey--Vineland, April 11; Morristown, April 23. New York--Jay, April 14; Geneva, April 25; Rochester, April 29. Connecticut--Jewett City, April 23; Hartford, April 23. Massachusetts--Boston, April 13; Taunton, April 20; Wilmington, April 26. Vermont--Wells River, April 25; St. Johnsbury, May 5; Rutland, May 7. New Hampshire--Charlestown, April 26; Tilton, May 2. Maine--Portland, April 26; Phillips, May 2. Quebec--Montreal, April 25. New Brunswick--Scotch Lake, May 7. Mississippi--Suffolk, March 22. Arkansas--Delight, March 29; Clinton, March 30. Tennessee--Athens, March 24. Kentucky--Eubank, April 2; Bowling Green, April 6. Missouri--Palmyra, April 9; St. Louis, April 13. Illinois--Chicago, April 13; Port Byron, April 23. Indiana--Fort Wayne, April 11; Bicknell, April 12; Lafayette, April 16. Ohio--Columbus, April 13; Wauseon, April 16; Youngstown, April 18. Michigan--Detroit, April 15; Sault Ste. Marie, May 3. Ontario--Ottawa, April 25; Toronto, April 28. Iowa--Keokuk, April 11; Sabula, April 16; Iowa City, April 18. Wisconsin--Milwaukee, April 21; Madison, April 26. Minnesota--Lanesboro, April 17; Elk River, April 24; St. Vincent, May 11. Texas--Grapevine, April 7. Kansas--Onaga, April 19; Topeka, April 20. North Dakota--Larimore, May 20. Manitoba--Aweme, May 1; Raeburn, May 1.

_Fall migration._--Late dates of fall departure are: Manitoba--Aweme, September 27. Minnesota--Elk River, September 23; Lanesboro, October 2. Iowa--Keokuk, October 2; Sabula, October 4. Missouri--Concordia, October 3; Palmyra, October 12. Ontario--Ottawa, October 16; Point Pelee, October 17. Michigan--Sault Ste. Marie, September 23; Detroit, October 6. Ohio--Wauseon, September 20. Indiana--Bicknell, September 21; Fort Wayne, September 22. Illinois--Port Byron, September 19. Kentucky--Eubank, October 4. Tennessee--Athens, October 3. Arkansas--Delight, October 4. New Brunswick--Scotch Lake, September 8. Maine--Phillips, October 6. New Hampshire--Ossipee, October 2. Vermont--Wells River, September 14; Rutland, September 21. Massachusetts--Harvard, October 10. Connecticut--Hartford, October 18. New Jersey--Morristown, October 10. Pennsylvania--Berwyn, October 5; Philadelphia, October 11. District of Columbia-- Washington, October 13. West Virginia--French Creek, October 2. North Carolina--Raleigh, November 6.

_Casual records._--The whippoorwill has been recorded, either by its call or by the collection of specimens, at several points outside its normal range. One was taken at Port Collins, Colo., on September 14, 1903, and one was heard at Eastend, in southwestern Saskatchewan, on August 29, 1919. In North Dakota, two specimens have been obtained at Grafton, one on October 9, 1923, and the other on May 24, 1924, while it was recorded at Stump Lake in the spring of 1910 and also at Cando. It has been noted occasionally near Wichita, Kans., and one was noted at Harper, Kans., on May 1, 1936. During the period July 5 to September 22, 1905, one was heard calling on Isle Royale, Mich., and in the summer of 1922 one was heard on the Cascapedia River, Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec. In Puerto Rico a specimen was collected for Cory, probably in 1888, and Wetmore reported seeing a bird that he felt certain was this species on December 23, 1911, near the experimental station at Rio Piedras.

_Egg dates._--Arizona: 12 records, May 3 to August 8; 6 records, May 22 to June 12, indicating the height of the season.

Connecticut: 9 records, May 20 to June 18.

Illinois: 39 records, May 9 to July 26; 20 records, May 18 to June 17.

West Virginia: 40 records, May 6 to July 7; 20 records, May 15 to June 3.

ANTROSTOMUS VOCIFERUS ARIZONAE Brewster

STEPHENS’S WHIPPOORWILL

PLATE 24

HABITS

This southwestern race of the whippoorwill is found in southern Arizona and New Mexico, in southwestern Texas, and southward through the mountains of northern Mexico, being replaced by another subspecies farther south. Although it is common enough in some of the Arizona mountain ranges, it is oftener heard than seen. It sits so closely, is so inactive during the day, and is so protectively colored that it is easily overlooked. The use of a flashlight at night will often enable one to locate one of these birds by the “eye-shine,” even at considerable distance.

William Brewster (1881), in naming this subspecies, described it as “generally similar to _A. vociferus_ but much larger; with the rictal bristles considerably longer; the gular crescent and a pretty well defined superciliary stripe, ochraceous; the lores and auriculars tawny ochraceous. The white of the tail barely tipping the outer web of the lateral tail feathers and on the others confined to a narrow apical space; the under tail-coverts nearly without barring.”

Mr. Brewster’s type came from the Chiricahua Mountains, Ariz., where they were evidently common, for Frank Stephens, the collector, wrote to him: “I have heard several of these Whip-poor-wills singing at one time and am told that they were heard here last year. I hear _A. nuttalli_ every evening. They keep high up the mountain sides, while _A. vociferus_ affects the lower part of the cañons.”

Harry S. Swarth (1904) says that this whippoorwill is a “fairly abundant summer resident” in the Huachuca Mountains, Ariz., “occurring principally between 5000 and 8000 feet; they may occasionally occur at a little higher elevation, but I have never seen any below the lowest altitude given.”

A. J. van Rossem (1936) writes:

The vertical range of Stephens’s Whip-poor-will is not
limited to the higher mountains. Above 6000 feet in the
Santa Ritas many birds were heard on every occasion that we
stayed out after dark, but I also heard a whip-poor-will
several times at 5000 feet in the Atascos and Dr. Miller
collected a specimen at Peña Blanca Spring, Pajarito
Mountains, in June, 1931. These two localities are well
down in the Upper Sonora Zone.

I took, all told, six specimens of this common, though
seldom collected, whip-poor-will and saw or heard several
times that number. In the Santa Ritas they showed a decided
preference for groves of oaks and sycamores in the cañon
bottoms, and nearly all of those which were found at night
were feeding in the immediate vicinity of running water. A
pair to the mile seemed to be normal in most cañons which
contained water and it was obvious that each pair had its
own territory.

_Spring._--Mr. Swarth (1904) saw the first arrival in 1903 “on April 28, and soon after their notes could be heard every evening, usually from some thickly wooded hillside, near the bottom of the canyon.” But Mr. Stephens wrote to Mr. Brewster (1881): “I heard the first Whip-poor-will about the middle of May. By June 1, they were as common as I ever knew them to be in the East. Sometimes I could hear three or four whistling at once.”

_Nesting._--We did not succeed in finding a nest of Stephens’s whippoorwill in the Huachuca Mountains, but my companion, Frank C. Willard, had previously found one there on May 24, 1899; the nest was on the ground at the base of a bush, and the eggs were lying on a few dead leaves; it was at an elevation of about 6,000 feet.

Mr. Stephens wrote to Major Bendire (1895): “The locality where I found the egg was a gulch near the summit of the Chiricahua Mountains, in a thick forest of yellow pine. The nest, if it can be called so, was a slight depression scratched in the ground, under the edge of a bowlder.”

Dr. A. K. Fisher sent Bendire the following notes:

The Whip-poor-will’s note was not heard at Fort Bowie,
Arizona, during the last three weeks of May, 1894. When
we made camp at the mouth of Rucker Canyon, some forty
miles south of the Post, in the Chiricahua Mountains, on
the last day of the month, we heard a few, and a couple
of days later found the species abundant higher up in
the same canyon, among the pines (_P. ponderosa_). Here
at early dusk and at dawn their notes were heard almost
continuously, and numbers of birds were seen. On June 5 Mr.
Fred. Hall Fowler found a nest, if the slight depression
in the ground can be so designated, on a steep side hill
about 50 feet above the stream. It was situated under an
overhanging bush at the edge of a flat rock, and contained
two young, recently hatched, and the fragments of egg
shells from which they had emerged.

Mr. Fowler wrote to Bendire concerning the same nest: “The eggs were deposited on a bed of oak leaves by the side of a large rock; there was no nest excepting the bare leaves, which had been hollowed out slightly.”

Mr. van Rossem (1936) found this whippoorwill nesting in the Santa Rita Mountains, Ariz., of which he writes:

Though males, and sometimes, before eggs were laid, mated
pairs, were invariably found in the cañon beds, the two
nests discovered were on hillsides at least a quarter
of a mile from water. On the night of June 6, 1931, I
caught the red eye-shine of a whippoorwill some distance
away (estimated by daylight at 150 yards) and across a
steep-banked cañon. With no expectation of collecting
anything I followed the trail to a point where I estimated
the shine to have been, but could locate nothing and
supposed that the bird had gone. On my return to the
original spot the eye was seen in the same location as
before, and this time, after a little search, I found a
female sitting under the protection of a fallen spray of
leafless twigs which lay on a steep bank beside the trail.
Three of us had passed within five or six feet of this
sitting bird on two occasions the day before. The sitting
bird made no effort to escape and was picked up by hand.
There was one nearly fresh egg in the shallow depression in
the gravelly soil which served as a nest, and stuck to the
ventral plumage of the incubating female were several small
pieces of shell, showing that another egg had been laid and
somehow broken.

_Eggs._--The two eggs laid by Stephens’s whippoorwill have been said to be pure, immaculate white, but this is not always the case. Mr. Brewster (1882) says of the egg sent to him by Mr. Stephens: “The egg is white with a dull gloss. At first sight it appears to be immaculate, but a closer inspection reveals a few faint blotches of the palest possible purple, so faint indeed that they might pass for superficial stains were it not for the fact that they underlie the external polish.” This egg measures 29.72 by 22.10 millimeters.

Mr. van Rossem (1936) says of the egg referred to above: “This single egg was by no means immaculate white, but was clouded and mottled with brown and lilac, mostly in the nature of semi-concealed shell markings. It was similar to but very much less highly colored than eggs of the eastern _vociferus_, however.” Another nest, found by him later, “contained one pure white egg and a newly hatched chick.”

Philo W. Smith, Jr. (1900), received two sets of eggs, taken by O. C. Poling in the Huachuca Mountains, which “very much resemble in shape and color sets of the common Poor Will in his collection, being possibly a trifle larger, and one egg of each set has a few almost imperceptible pinkish spots on one end, the other egg in each set being unspotted.”

There is a set of two eggs in the Thayer collection, taken in the Chiricahua Mountains, Ariz., on June 6, 1904, by Virgil W. Owen, that are decidedly spotted. These eggs are oval and only moderately glossy. The ground color is pure white, and both eggs are finely and irregularly marked with small spots and minute dots of “pale Quaker drab,” “pallid Quaker drab,” and very pale “clay color.”

The measurements of 29 eggs average 28.8 by 20.8 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =30.9= by 21.8, 29.0 by =22.6=, =25.8= by 20.1, and 28.9 by =19.9= millimeters.

_Plumages._--I have not seen the downy young of this subspecies, but the two newly hatched chicks, taken by Mr. Fowler, are described as “covered with light brown down, and were not more than 1½ inches long.” Mr. van Rossem (1936) describes a newly hatched chick as “clothed with a very respectable covering of down--in color between ‘cinnamon’ and ‘orange-cinnamon’ of Ridgway.”

I have not seen enough material to work out the molts of this race, but I suppose that they are not very different from those of the eastern whippoorwill. Mr. Brewster’s type was a male, which is described above. He later received an adult female from Mr. Stephens, of which he says (1882): “This specimen differs even more widely from the female, than does my type from the male of _A. vociferus_. The ochraceous of the lores, superciliary-stripe, and neck-collar, spreads over the entire plumage both above and beneath, giving it a tawny tinge which overlies and obscures the usual dark markings. On the shoulders, breast, lores and throat this color deepens to a fine reddish-chestnut, and elsewhere it replaces the ashy, dirty white and other light tints of the eastern birds. In its general coloring the plumage strikingly resembles that of the brown phase of _Scops asio kennicotti_.”

Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1928) says that the young male is “similar to adult male but top of head spotted instead of streaked with black, throat band indistinct, wing coverts and scapulars broadly barred with dusky, and irregularly marked with black; underparts barred with dusky on a brownish buffy ground. _Young female_: Similar to young male but outer tail feathers tipped with brownish buff instead of white.”

_Behavior._--The food, feeding habits, and general behavior of Stephens’s whippoorwill are apparently similar to those of its eastern relative. Mr. van Rossem noticed a peculiarity that I have not seen in the eastern bird, of which he writes: “A, to me, surprising circumstance, was the marked erectability of the feathers above the eyes. Both of the sitting females carried these tufts constantly erect the entire time they were under observation. A male seen from directly in front alternately raised and flattened them. On one previous occasion, when night hunting in El Salvador, I had observed the eastern subspecies (_vociferus_) to have markedly erectile tufts; in fact until I picked the bird up I was certain that I had shot some small ‘eared’ owl. About 45% from the horizontal was the maximum elevation, though when viewed from directly in front the tufts appear nearly vertical.”

_Fall._--Mr. Swarth (1904) says that, in the Huachucas, “they seem to remain rather late in the fall, as at the end of August their notes were heard as frequently as ever, and I have a female taken by H. Kimball on September 29, 1895. An adult male secured on August 29, 1902, had not yet quite completed its moult.”

PHALAENOPTILUS NUTTALLI NUTTALLI (Audubon)

NUTTALL’S POORWILL

HABITS

Nuttall’s poorwill is the best known and the most widely distributed race of this species, occupying a wide range in western North America, from southern Canada to Mexico and from the Great Plains to eastern California. Major Bendire (1895) says of its haunts:

In some of its habits it differs considerably from the
preceding species of this family which are almost entirely
confined to the denser woodlands; the Poor-will, however,
although frequently found in similar localities, is
apparently equally as much at home on the open prairie and
the almost barren and arid regions of the interior, which
are covered only here and there with stunted patches of
sage (_Artemisia_) and other desert plants. The climate
does not seem to affect it much, as it inhabits some of
the hottest regions of the continent, like Death Valley,
in southeastern California, as well as the slopes of the
Rocky and Blue mountains, in Oregon, where it reaches
altitudes of from 6,000 to 8,000 feet. I have heard the
Poor-will in Bear Valley, Oregon, in a locality where frost
could be found every month in the year.

Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1932) writes: “At times poorwills are found in growths of low forests, but they are more often encountered in regions where dense clumps of brush are scattered over otherwise open ground, as is common in desert and semiarid localities, or in brush-grown, rocky canyons, where the ground is rough and strewn with bowlders.”

Referring to the Huachuca Mountains, in Arizona, Harry S. Swarth (1904) says: “I found the Poor-will quite abundant during the summer months in the foothill region and in the lower parts of the canyons; but though most numerous below 5000 feet they were by no means restricted to these parts, for I saw or heard some in all parts of the mountains occasionally up to an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet.”

George F. Simmons (1925) designates its haunts in Texas as “high, gravelly flats or bits of plateau grown with post oak timber and with occasional moist spots; gravel patches dotted with catsclaw bushes, located in post oak growth on slopes and flat tops of hills; high prairies on rough ground along the terraces of valleys; bare ground on rocky hillsides; among shrubbery or on semi-arid flats.”

_Nesting._--The nesting of the poorwill is a very simple affair. The two eggs are laid on the bare ground, without any semblance of nest building; a slight hollow may be scraped in the bare earth, or the eggs may be laid on hard gravelly ground, or even on a flat rock. The exact spot chosen for a nest site may be in full sunlight, but oftener it is at least partially shaded by some bush, often a greasewood bush or a bunch of sagebrush, or some other bunch of vegetation. The only eggs taken by Major Bendire (1895) were “laid on the bare ground under a small grease-wood bush (_Obione_) and were fully exposed to the sun,” near Tucson, Ariz. Prof. D. E. Lantz wrote to him from Kansas, regarding the nesting habits of the poorwill in that region, that “with one exception the eggs taken were laid upon bare patches of gravel or on low, flat rocks, and placed usually near a bunch of weeds or a tuft of grass. The exception was a set found on the bare ground in an alley in Manhattan City. This alley was in constant use and it was strange that the eggs remained for so long a time undisturbed, for when taken incubation had begun in both eggs. The Poor-wills usually keep to the vicinity of steep hills and old dead grass. They seem to return to the same locality from year to year to breed.”

E. S. Cameron (1907), reporting from Montana, says: “On June 26, 1907, Mr. M. M. Archdale flushed a Poor-will from her two white eggs on a steep hillside in some rough pine brakes at his ranch near Knowlton. In this unfrequented place the eggs were fully exposed on the bare earth amidst the pines. On June 28, we went together to the place intending to photograph the eggs, but they had been already removed by the bird.”

_Eggs._--The two eggs of the poorwill are generally said to be pure white, but Bendire (1895) says that the color is not pure white and that “on close inspection it can readily be seen that it is a delicate cream, with a faint pinkish tint which does not perceptibly fade. Eggs in the collection taken more than twenty years ago still plainly show this peculiar tint. The eggs are unspotted as a rule, but an occasional specimen shows a few faint, darker shell markings around one end, which are barely perceptible to the naked eye, and which fade considerably in time.”

In shape the eggs vary from oval to elliptical-oval; and they are only moderately glossy. The measurements of 50 eggs average 26.3 by 19.9 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =28.9= by 19.8, 27.5 by =21.6=, =22.1= by 19.3, and 24.6 by =18.1= millimeters.

_Young._--The period of incubation does not seem to be definitely known. Dr. Wetmore (1932) says: “Both birds are said to assist in incubation. When disturbed about the nest, they tumble about and with widely opened mouths make a loud hissing sound terrifyingly like the hissing of a snake.”

Robert B. Rockwell writes to me that he found a female with two young “as large as an ordinary week or ten days old chick. They were squatting perfectly motionless on the ground, about a foot apart, each in the shadow of something. Their feathers were quite well developed. They made no move when I picked them up, but opened their eyes when I put them down again.”

_Plumages._--Elmer C. Aldrich (1935) describes the downy young of the dusky poorwill, less than a day old and about 2½ inches long, as covered with a rich buff down. Ridgway (1914) describes the downy covering of a young _nuttalli_ as “vinaceous-buff, paler on underparts.” Two small partially downy young in my collection are showing the growth of the first plumage on the forehead, crown, nape, back, and scapulars; these feathers are dull buffy white, minutely sprinkled with grayish, and have small spots and narrow bars of black; the new feathers on the underparts and flanks are dull white, indistinctly barred with dusky; the wings are less than one-third grown, and the tail is just sprouting.

Ridgway (1914) says of the young in juvenal plumage: “Not essentially different from adults, but markings in general less sharply defined, especially on underparts, and throat patch buff instead of white.”

I have been unable to learn anything about the molts of either young or adults, but Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1908) says that a specimen in juvenal plumage, “taken August 22, shows many feathers of the full adult plumage in the throat and breast. The juvenal plumage is characterized by having the throat patch buff and the back conspicuously mixed with cinnamon-rufus.”

A young male, collected by Van Tyne and Sutton (1937) in Brewster County, Tex., on May 25, was in the midst of the postjuvenal molt; “the crown is uniform gray, without any suggestion of a dark central patch, the feathers being only lightly speckled with black. * * * The chest lacks entirely the black patch and band, the feathers being lightly and indistinctly tipped with tawny and whitish.”

The so-called frosted poorwill (_nitidus_) is now regarded as merely a color phase of _nuttalli_.

_Food._--The food of the poorwill consists, so far as it appears by the data available, entirely of insects, mostly the smaller, night-flying species, such as moths, beetles, chinch bugs, and locusts. Mrs. Bailey (1928) says that “in one stomach, 80 per cent of the contents was grasshoppers and locusts.” Many of these insects are caught on the wing in the capacious mouths of these birds, but many are also picked up on the ground.

Dr. R. W. Shufeldt (1885) noticed a poorwill “apparently amusing himself by making short jumps of two feet or more up in the air, then resting on the road to repeat the performance in a moment or so. Another was going through similar capers on the broad walk. They seemed to be perfectly oblivious to my presence, and, indeed, some children further along were trying to catch them with their hands.” He shot one of the birds, and “was much surprised to find in its mouth some four or five quite sizable moths, and the upper portion of the oesophagus was filled with a wad of a dozen or fifteen more. Fully half of these were yet alive, and two or three managed to fly away when freed from the bodies of their more disabled companions. This, then, is what the bird was up to; instead of flying about as a Nighthawk does, taking his insect prey in a conspicuous manner upon the wing, he captures it in the way I have described above.”

A. Brazier Howell (1927) writes:

August 28, 1926, I was sitting near midnight, on the
observation platform of the California Limited as it
stopped at Needles, California. It was with much interest
that I then noted at least three poorwills (_Phalaenoptilus
nuttalli nitidus?_) hawking about a powerful arc light in
the railway yards close by. The observation point of one
of these was upon the top of a board fence well within the
circle of illumination; of the others, some point out of
my direct vision and just beyond the fence. One after the
other, until my train left ten minutes later, they would
flutter up in their quest for insects, not just somewhere
near the light but apparently right against the glass
globe which inclosed the arc, returning each time to their
respective stations for observation.

Mrs. Bailey (1928) says: “When hunting for food the Poor-will skims swiftly and noiselessly close over the ground with irregular turnings and windings and rests between, and when its catch contains hard indigestible parts like the wing coverts of beetles, ejects them in the form of pellets, as do the hawks and owls, kingfishers, and others of similar food habits. A road through a forest with its abundant flies and insects is said to be one of its favorite hunting grounds.”

The stomach of one taken by Van Tyne and Sutton (1937) on May 25 in Brewster County, Tex., was crammed with four large June beetles (_Phyllophaga_ sp.) and a large army ant (male _Eciton_ sp.).

_Behavior._--Mrs. Bailey (1928) says that a poorwill, wounded by Mr. Bailey, exhibited a surprising method of defense; he “opened his mouth wide and hissed and blew and flopped about on the ground, always facing the enemy. Blowing like a blow snake and opening and shutting his mouth, he was enough to terrify all minor enemies.”

Referring to the eye-shine, common among the Caprimulgidae, Mrs. Bailey quotes Dr. Bergtold as saying: “While motoring at night through a particularly dark canyon, I noticed far ahead in the illuminated road, two small glowing pink spots which were extinguished when a bird flew from the road on the near approach of the car. The bird alighted again, some distance ahead in the road, when the pink spots reappeared and were identified as the bird’s eyes; it was shot and proved to be a Poor-will.”

Dr. Wetmore (1932) says that poorwills “rest during the day on the ground, though after night, when feeding or calling, may seek higher perches on stones or posts or on low branches. On one occasion I saw one by bright moonlight calling from a bush, where it perched crosswise on a small limb, like any ordinary bird, though ordinarily they rest lengthwise of branches, like others of their family.”

Dr. Elliott Coues (1874) says: “Like others of its family, Nuttall’s Whippoorwill is oftener heard than seen. When flushed from its retreat in the daytime, among the shrubbery or tall weeds, it rises hurriedly with wayward flight, dashes a few yards, and re-alights. There is something about it at such times that strongly recalls the Woodcock, and the bird is quite as difficult to shoot on the wing.”

_Voice._--The call of the poorwill is generally recorded as a clear pronunciation of its name, but many observers have noted a third syllable, audible at only a short distance, making the complete song sound like _poor-will-low_, or _poor-will-ee_, when the bird is near, or _poor-will_ when farther away, or even _p’-will_ when still farther away. Mr. Simmons (1925) writes it _puih-whee-ee_.

Dr. Coues (1874) says: “This cry is very lugubrious, and in places where the birds are numerous the wailing chorus is enough to excite vague apprehensions on the part of the lonely traveler, as he lies down to rest by his camp-fire, or to break his sleep with fitful dreams, in which lost spirits appear to bemoan their fate and implore his intercession.”

Some other writers give a less unpleasant impression of the song; for instance, Dr. Wetmore (1932) says: “Near at hand these calls are harsh, but with distance the first two assume a pleasant, somewhat melancholy cadence.” And Mrs. Bailey (1928) writes: “When we were camped on the edge of a canyon in the Guadalupe Mountains, at dusk while the bats were flying down in the canyon, up along the edge came the Poor-wills so near that we could hear their syllables distinctly--_poor-will´-uck, poor-will´-uck_. Sometimes two would call antiphonally, faster and faster till they fairly tripped over each other. The call as it is often given is a delightfully soft, _poor-will´, poor-will´, poor-will´-uck_, which like the delicious aromatic smell of the sagebrush clings long to the memory of the lover of the west.”

Henry W. Henshaw (1875) says that “their notes are most often noticed in early evening, and again just before dawn, but not infrequently their song is heard through the entire night. * * * When flying, they emit a constantly repeated clucking note, which is, I think, common to both sexes. * * * The males continue their notes till very late in the season; for I frequently heard them during the first part of October, and even as late as the 17th.”

_Field marks._--In superficial appearance the poorwill looks very much like a small whippoorwill, and its behavior is similar. It also somewhat resembles a partly grown young nighthawk, but its behavior is different; whereas the nighthawk flies about high in the air in pursuit of its prey, the poorwill hunts on or near the ground, flitting about like a large moth on silent wings; the poorwill is more strictly nocturnal in its activities than the nighthawk; furthermore, it exhibits no white patch in the wing, while flying, but shows white tips on the lateral tail feathers. Its note is, of course, characteristic.

_Winter._--The poorwill retires from the northern portions of its range late in fall and spends the winter near, or beyond, our southern borders. Dr. Coues (1874) reports, in some notes from Ogden, Utah, that “it lingers at its summer home till the autumn is far advanced, as we found it at Ogden as late as October 6, quite far up the slope of the mountains, in the midst of a driving snow-storm--the first of the season--the snow having then already accumulated to the depth of several inches.”

In Arizona, New Mexico, and central Texas it is usually absent from late in October to early in April. It apparently winters more or less regularly in southern Texas, though its main winter range is in Mexico.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Central and western United States, and southern British Columbia, south to central Mexico.

_Breeding range._--The breeding range of the poorwill extends =north= to southern British Columbia (Kamloops and Okanagan Landing); Montana (Billings and Terry); northwestern South Dakota (Slim Buttes); north-central Nebraska (Long Pine Canyon); and southwestern Iowa (Pottawattamie County). =East= to southwestern Iowa (Pottawattamie County); eastern Kansas (Blue Rapids, Onaga, Lawrence, and Clearwater); central Texas (Kerrville, San Antonio, and Somerset); eastern Coahuila (Sabinas and Saltillo); and probably Morelos (Cuernavaca). =South= to probably Morelos (Cuernavaca); southern Sonora (Alamos); and southern Baja California (San Jose del Cabo). =West= to Baja California (San Jose del Cabo, Miraflores, Triunfo, Pozo Grande, San Fernando, Santo Domingo, La Joya, San Telmo, and probably Todos Santos Islands); California (San Diego, Escondido, Ojai Valley, Santa Cruz Mountain, San Geronimo, Covel, and probably Yreka); Oregon (Brownsboro, Bridge Creek, and probably Netarts); eastern Washington (Crab Creek and Cheney); and British Columbia (Summerland and Kamloops).

_Winter range._--The species is probably resident in the southern part of its range and during the winter season is found =north= to southern California (Berryessa Station, Paicines, Death Valley, and Laguna); rarely southern Arizona (Tucson); and southern Texas (El Paso, rarely Kerrville, Laredo, and Falfurrias).

The range as outlined is for the entire species, which has been separated into four currently recognized geographic races. The typical subspecies, Nuttall’s poorwill (_P. n. nuttalli_) occupies all the United States portion of the range except that part of California west of the Sierra Nevada. The dusky poorwill (_P. n. californicus_) is found in western California from the northern part of the Sacramento Valley south to northwestern Baja California; the desert poorwill (_P. n. hueyi_) is restricted to the lower Colorado River Valley, southwestern Arizona, and northeastern Baja California; and the San Ignacio poorwill (_P. n. dickeyi_) is found in Baja California south of latitude 30° N.

_Spring migration._--Early dates of spring arrival are: Texas-- Kerrville, February 4; San Antonio, February 27. Kansas--Manhattan, April 7; Onaga, April 7. New Mexico--Chloride, March 31; State College, April 7; Rinconada, April 10. Colorado--Beulah, April 29; Denver, May 9. Wyoming--Laramie Peak, May 2; Lingle, May 3. Montana--Terry, May 16. Arizona--Tombstone, March 20. Utah--Kobe Valley, May 23. California--Piedra, March 5; Daggett, March 12; San Clemente Island, March 30; Lassen Peak, April 16. British Columbia--Okanagan Landing, April 22.

_Fall migration._--Late dates of fall departure are: British Columbia--Okanagan Landing, September 20. California--Daggett, October 21; Los Angeles, October 25; La Verne, October 28; Garnsey, November 2. Arizona--San Francisco Mountain, September 29. Montana--Big Sandy, September 4; Bighorn River, September 19. Wyoming--Powder River, September 9; Clear Fork, September 19. Colorado--Beulah, October 8. New Mexico--State College, October 30; Sierra Hachita, November 24. South Dakota--White River, September 27. Kansas--Onaga, September 27. Oklahoma--Kenton, September 26.

_Egg dates._--Arizona: 5 records, May 2 to August 2.

California: 42 records, March 22 to August 8; 21 records, May 6 to June 25, indicating the height of the season.

Colorado: 5 records, May 26 to July 27.

Texas: 11 records, April 29 to June 20.

PHALAENOPTILUS NUTTALLI CALIFORNICUS Ridgway

DUSKY POORWILL

PLATES 25–27

HABITS

The goatsuckers are now in their proper place in the A. O. U. Check-list, showing their relationship to the owls, which they strikingly resemble in several characters. The poorwills are conspicuous in this respect; they are more strictly nocturnal in their activities than some of the owls, for which they are well adapted; the eyes are very large, suggesting those of owls; the mouth is very broad, but some of the owls have broad mouths also; the plumage is fully as soft as that of the owls; and their flight is noiseless, like that of most night-flying birds. The Caprimulgidae are not predators on vertebrate animals, although the chuck-will’s-widow has been known to eat birds; but they all live on animal food; and many owls live largely on insects.

The dusky poorwill does not enjoy so extensive a distribution as its inland relative, _nuttalli_, but perhaps it is equally as well known throughout its range in California.

_Nesting._--The steep slopes and ridges of the foothills and the sides of canyons seem to form the favorite nesting haunts of this, as well as other poorwills. Elmer C. Aldrich (1935) gives a very good description of a locality in Tuolumne County, Calif., where a nest was found on July 5, 1934:

The altitude was about 5600 feet, and the general
vegetation of the area consisted of yellow pines, incense
cedars, white firs, black oak islands, a few species of
ceanothus, and a little manzanita, with mountain misery
covering most of the open hillside. The immediate location
of the nest was in a little circular clearing about fifteen
yards in diameter, surrounded by young yellow pines closely
knit together by small, interwoven branches. The clearing
contained three manzanita bushes and one ceanothus bush.
The greater part of it was strewn with long dead pole-like
logs, which appeared to be one of the basic requirements
for the Poor-will’s protection. The entire north side
of the opening was bordered by a large decayed log of a
diameter of three feet, which, because of the common use by
the Poor-will, came to be called “the log.”

The nest was found when we were coming from the north and
upon advancing four yards after stepping over this log.
When the adult flushed from the nest the observer’s foot
was but eighteen inches from the site. The bird flew across
the clearing into the edge of the dense forest, where it
lit on a small log and watched without movement for fifteen
minutes while pictures of the two light buff eggs were
obtained.

Dr. William L. Holt writes to me that he found a nest near Banning, Calif., on June 13, 1909, on the bare ground on the north side of a sandy hill, nearly bare of vegetation. J. E. Patterson has sent me two excellent photographs (pls. 25, 26) of poorwills’ nests. The one taken in Stanislaus County, Calif., on June 23, 1934, was on the ground in open timber; the other, taken in Mariposa County, Calif., on June 21, 1933, was on the ground in a fire deadening on a hillside; both were in the Transition Zone.

A. J. van Rossem (1920) found a nest on April 18, 1919, a very early date, on the side of a canyon, where there was a heavy growth of wild lilac and white sage; “no attempt whatever seemed to have been made at constructing a nest, the eggs lying on the bare ground among pebbles, etc., in the shade of some dense brush that bordered upon a small open space.” The nest has also been found on bare rock, but is usually, at least partially, shaded by some bush, loose brush, brakes, or weeds. The birds are very apt to return to the exact spot to nest each year.

_Eggs._--As a rule the eggs of the dusky poorwill, two in number, are similar to the eggs of other poorwills, but van Rossem and Bowles (1920) write:

In a majority of the descriptions that are given for eggs
of the various forms of the Poor-will, the color is stated
as white, without markings, sometimes with a pinkish tinge.
However, such was by no means the case with the set of
eggs under discussion. Before blowing, the ground color
was a strong salmon pink; but this, after blowing, turned
to a clear, glossy, pinkish white, strongly suggesting
eggs of the Merrill Pauraque (_Nyctidromus albicollis
merrilli_), although the pink of the Poor-will eggs showed
a closer approach to salmon. Around the larger ends was a
rather dense wreath of lavender and dusky spots and dots,
making the eggs look exceedingly like the marked eggs of
some small petrel. * * * In the course of time many of the
smaller dots have faded out, leaving only a comparatively
few spots and dots to show where the heavy wreath was
once located. The strong pinkish tinge has also very
largely gone, in spite of the fact that the eggs have been
carefully kept from exposure to the light.

The measurements of 40 eggs average 26.3 by 19.4 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =28.4= by 20.0, 27.7 by =21.1=, =24.2= by 18.2, and 24.9 by =17.0= millimeters.

_Behavior._--Poorwills are notoriously close sitters, but the pair studied by Mr. Aldrich (1935) were unusually tame. He was repeatedly able to approach cautiously to within 3 or 4 feet of the incubating bird; once, at night, eight observers managed to approach within 2 feet, while the bird sat tight all the time. The next morning, “when we were but three feet from the nest, the bird’s large clear white spots on the tail identified it to be the male that was doing the incubating. Many pictures were taken, some as close as ten inches, without the slightest sign of fear on the part of the sitting bird. * * * Experiments were made to find the extent of his ‘bravery’ by touching him. While touching the head the first time he flattened out his wings and spread the fan-like tail over the tips of them showing all the tail spots. The large head was then brought far back on the shoulders, the cavernous mouth opened extremely wide showing the pink interior, and a low guttural hiss was emitted at short intervals.”

Later in the same day, at 2 p. m., he flushed the female from the nest and sat down 5 yards away to watch her return; “exactly ten and one-half minutes marked the reappearance of the same bird. She had flown from behind the log nearly to the top where she could barely look over and observe the surroundings. Immediately she started swaying from side to side very slowly and rhythmically for about five seconds before walking to the top of the log, each step in synchronization with the swaying. Here she paused for about twenty seconds, and then flew a few yards, within two and one-half feet of the nest, where she began swaying again. The rest of the distance to the nest was accomplished by this slow walking-swaying process, and she did not seem to get anxious and speed up as she came closer. Two short stops were made on the way.”

The dusky poorwill is tame and unsuspicious at other times also. Rollo H. Beck (1897) watched one at short range while it was catching insects on a road and finally succeeded in putting his hat over it, though it escaped; he says: “After watching it a while I crawled up within four feet and had a chance to watch it in the bright moonlight. It would fly perhaps twenty or thirty feet into the air after insects and return again within four or five feet of me. One time it flew up and evidently picked an insect off the leaf of a wild cherry tree, fluttering for several seconds in its endeavor to do so. It several times flew by me after food and returning would fly within a foot or so of my head and alight just in front of me.”

_Voice._--H. Gordon Heggeness writes to me of the song of the dusky poorwill as he heard it in the Sequoia National Park: “Sometimes early in the morning the poorwill would be heard--the calm, liquid notes carrying far on the cool air. On August 12, 1935, a poorwill began singing back of my cabin at 2:30 a. m. His most pleasing notes were heard continuously for the next half hour.”

Grinnell and Storer (1924) write: “It is heard most persistently at dusk of evening or in the early morning; but near Pleasant Valley on the morning of May 23, 1915, one of these birds suddenly broke out at 10 o’clock and uttered its _poor-will-o_ 85 times (by count, within 2 or 3) at intervals of two or three seconds.”

R. H. Lawrence wrote to Major Bendire (1895) that, according to his hearing, “the words ‘Pearl-rab-it’ give a fair idea of its call”; and that “when startled it gave quickly, two or three times in succession, a low, soft note, like ‘pweek, pweek, pweek,’ which could only be heard a few yards away.”

PHALAENOPTILUS NUTTALLI HUEYI Dickey

DESERT POORWILL

HABITS

Donald R. Dickey (1928) described and named this pale race of the poorwill from a fine series of specimens collected in the valley of the Colorado River by Mrs. May Canfield and Laurence M. Huey. As to its subspecific characters, he says that it is “nearest in color to the light type of _Phalaenoptilus nuttalli nuttalli_ (Audubon), which Brewster named _nitidus_ and to which he gave the eminently fitting vernacular of the Frosted Poor-will, but averaging very much lighter. The backs of _hueyi_ are pinkish tan, almost devoid of the silver frosting characteristic of more eastern birds, and with the size of the dark dorsal ‘owl’s eye’ marking greatly reduced, in many cases practically obsolete; under parts lighter throughout, with the dark band below the white collar narrower and of lighter tone, and with narrower barring of sides and flanks. Tail lighter and less contrastingly barred above and below.”

The 1931 Check-list gives the range of this race as the valley of the lower Colorado River, in southeastern California, southwestern Arizona, and extreme northeastern Baja California.

A. J. van Rossem (1936) took four poorwills near Bates Well, in south-central Arizona, that were somewhat intermediate between _hueyi_ and _nuttalli_, though nearer the latter; this locality probably indicates the approximate area of intergradation between the two races. “All were collected in an arrowweed-mesquite association along the borders of the dry stream bed. Conditions, both as to habitat and temperatures, closely approximated those found along the Lower Colorado River Valley, beyond the confines of which _hueyi_ has not been detected.”

This poorwill probably does not differ materially in its habits from neighboring races of the species.

PHALAENOPTILUS NUTTALLI DICKEYI Grinnell

SAN IGNATIO POORWILL

HABITS

Three races of the poorwill are found on the peninsula of Baja California. The present form ranges from about latitude 30° southward to the Cape region; the dusky poorwill (_californicus_) extends its range southward in the northwestern portion to about latitude 30°, chiefly on the Pacific slope; and the desert poorwill (_hueyi_) is found in the extreme northeastern portion.

The San Ignatio poorwill is a small, dark race. Dr. Joseph Grinnell, who described and named it, says (1928) that it is “similar to _Ph. n. californicus_ in degree of general darkness but decidedly smaller, and with black areas on the individual feathers of scapulars, top of head and chest greatly reduced, in this respect resembling _hueyi_; terminal white of lateral rectrices greater in amount than in _californicus_; light portions of general color scheme much darker than in _hueyi_ or _nuttallii_, tinged with clay color rather than ‘frosted’--in this respect darker even than in average _californicus_; dark barring on posterior lower surface much more extensive and heavier than in _hueyi_ or _nuttalli_.”

William Brewster (1902) referred the poorwills of the Cape region to the race he named the frosted poorwill (_Ph. n. nitidus_), based on a pair collected by M. A. Frazar in the Sierra de la Laguna. Mr. Frazar said that on the mountains the poorwills did not begin singing until about the middle of May. “Their note is a _pow-wè-hoo_, the first syllable given long, the accent on the second, and the last little more than a retraction of the breath. They were almost invariably in large oaks and very seldom on the ground. A female shot June 6 was undoubtedly mated and would have laid soon.”

Nothing seems to be known about the nesting or other habits of this poorwill.

NYCTIDROMUS ALBICOLLIS MERRILLI Sennett

MERRILL’S PAURAQUE

PLATE 28

HABITS

Merrill’s pauraque is the largest subspecies of a widely distributed species of goatsucker that ranges throughout Mexico, Central America, and northern South America, and that has been divided into six subspecies. Our pauraque extends its range from northern Mexico into the valley of the Rio Grande and northward through the Gulf coast of Texas to Nueces, Aransas, and Refugio Counties. The vernacular name, pauraque, pronounced “pou-rä´-kā,” is derived from a fancied resemblance to one of its notes. The Mexican name, cuiejo, pronounced “coo-ya-ho,” has a similar origin.

This bird was first introduced to our fauna by Dr. J. C. Merrill, who took the first specimen at Fort Brown, Tex., on April 1, 1876. The subspecies was first described and named by George B. Sennett (1888), who gives a full account of its plumages at different ages and says of its relation to other races of the species: “This form, when compared with others of the species from Southern Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Guiana, and Brazil, can be distinguished, first by the prevailing gray color on upper parts, where the others have brown, rufous or cinnamon; second, by its large size, exceeding the large southern Brazilian form in length of wing and equalling it in length of tail; third, by the males having the outer tailfeather generally without white, and the white when it does occur being much restricted, while in more tropical and South American forms the rule is that males have much white on inner web of outer tailfeather.” This third point seems open to question, as this character seems to be very variable, possibly owing to age.