STEPHENS'S WHIPPOOPvWILL 185 



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 desigr 

 nated, 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 Kossem (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 canon beds, the two nests discovered were on hill- 

 sides 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 canon. 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 loca- 

 tion 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 neai-ly 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 wore 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 



178223—40 13 



