WESTERN BIRDS Poor-wm 



Order Macrochires : Goatsuckers, Swifts, 

 Hummingbirds, etc. 



Suborder Caprimulgi. 



GENUS PHAL.1]N0PTILUS : HUMMING- 

 BIRDS, GOATSUCKEES, ETC. 



Poor-Will: Phclcenoptilus nuttalli nuttalli. 



FAMILY— CAPRIMOLGIDtE: NIGHTHAWKS, 

 WHIP-POOR-WILLS, ETC. 



The members of the Goatsucker family are so dif- 

 ferent from all others that they are easy of identification, 

 if one is so fortunate to come upon them. The Chuck- 

 will-widows and Whip-poor-wills of the east and the 

 Poor- Wills of the west are nocturnal birds, preferring to 

 sleep on a limb in a cool wood or on the shady ground, 

 in the day time and come out at night to hunt on swift 

 wings the moths, beetles, gnats and such-like that form 

 their food. It is also as dusk approaches that the listener 

 hears the plaintive cry in which the bird calls its name 

 in quick rapid succession. It is so different from any- 

 thing else in Nature that once heard it cannot be for- 

 gotten, or confused with other bird calls. 



Nuttall's Poor-Will breeds from the western portion of 

 the Great Plains west to the Cascade-Sierra ranges and 

 up into British Columbia; south to southern Arizona 

 and Texas; west to eastern California east of the Sierra; 

 winters from southeastern California and southern 

 Texas to central Mexico. 



The Dusky Poor-Will (Phalsenoptilus nuttalli califor- 



41 



