244 Birds of Colorado 



90, p. 88 ; Bendire 92, p. 153 ; Lowe 94, p. 268 ; Cooke 97, pp. 85, 208 ; 

 Henderson 03, p. 235 ; 09, p. 232; Giltnan 07, p. 154 ; Warren 08, p. 21; 

 09, p. 15 ; Rockwell 08, p. 165 ; Hersey & Rockwell 09, p. 118. 



Description. — Male — -Above silverj'--grey, finely mottled and marked 

 with velvety-black bars and angular spots ; primaries and outer 

 secondaries tawny, barred with dusky, mottled like the back at the tips ; 

 tail with four central feathers like the back, outer one chiefly dusky 

 with white terminal patches, about -75 inch long ; below a white 

 throat-patch, breast almost black with a few whitish spots, abdomen 

 pale buffy irregularly barred with brown ; under tail-coverts plain 

 bufiy ; iris dark brown, bill and legs dusky, the latter purplish. 

 Length 7-0 ; wing 5-5 ; tail 3-0 ; culmen -32 ; tarsus -65. 



The female is very like the male, but the white terminal bands of the 

 tail are narrower, about -5 inch, and tinged with tawny. 



Distribution. — The dryer parts of western North America, breeding 

 from south-east British Columbia and North Dakota south to the 

 Mexican border, east to Kansas and Oklahoma, west to the Cascades 

 and Sierra Nevada ; in winter through eastern Mexico to Guatemala. 



Tho Poor-will is a fairly common summer bird in Colorado. It 

 reaches El Paso co. early in May, Austins Bluffs, May 3rd (Allen &, 

 Brewster), and has been found nesting both in the plains and in the 

 parks to about 8,000 feet, while Lowe both saw and heard it as high as 

 10,000 feet in the Wet Mountains. 



The following are notices : Estes Park, nesting (W. G. Smith apud 

 Bendire), Boulder co., nesting in the hills (Gale), Barr Lake district, 

 rare (Hersey & Rockwell), Denver, May 15th, and Fort Garland, 

 August (Henshaw), Middle Park, breeding (Carter), Craig, June (Warren, 

 08), Mesa co., 6,500 to 8,000 feet m Plateau Valley (Rockwell), Montrose 

 CO., breeding (Warren 09). 



Habits. — Unlike the other members of the Goatsucker 

 family, the Poor-will is not confined to wooded districts ; 

 it is quite as much at home on the open prairie and on 

 the desolate sage-brush plains. It is thoroughly crepus- 

 cular, coming out at dusk and noiselessly pursuing 

 night-flying moths and beetles ; it also gathers a good 

 deal of its prey on the ground. Like the Owls it ejects 

 the hard and indigestible parts of its food in the form 

 of pellets. During the day it remains quiet on the ground, 

 sheltered from view by a bush or a bunch of grass. It 

 has a melancholy wailing song, " Poor-will," heard at 



