192 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



poor-will when farther away, or even p^-will when still farther away. 

 Mr. Simmons (1925) writes it puih-whee-ee. 



Dr. Cones (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-wilV-uck, j)oor-ivilV-uGk. 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-wilV, 

 poor-wilV, poor-wilV-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 be- 

 havior 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 ad- 

 vanced, 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." 



