200 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Mr. Burrows wrote to Major Benclire (1895) : "I have never found 

 the Parauque nesting in the dense thickets, where they hide during 

 the winter. They seek the more open ground, the high, level spots 

 near the river, or up some arroya, among scattering bushes and pear 

 cactus, but never on the rocky hills, where the Texan Nighthawk 

 is frequently found. In one instance a nest was found at the edge 

 of a cultivated field. The eggs are placed on the bare ground, with 

 no attempt at nest building, and usually at the foot of a clump of 

 bushes. The bird, when flushed from the nest, quietly darts off and 

 drops to the ground but a short distance away." 



Dr. James C. Merrill (1878) writes: "On the 15th of May, 1876, 

 I found a set of eggs near camp at Hidalgo, and on returning in 

 about fifteen minutes to secure the parent, who had disappeared 

 among the thickets, I found that she had removed the eggs, although 

 they had not been touched." 



Eggs. — The pauraque lays two very handsome eggs, quite unlike 

 the eggs of any other species in the family. They vary in shape 

 between oval and elliptical-oval, with a decided tendency toward 

 ovate or elliptical-ovate, one end often being slightly more pointed 

 than the other. The shell is smooth, with little or no gloss. The 

 ground color varies from "light ochraceous-salmon" to "pinkish 

 buff". Some eggs appear to be nearly immaculate, but in most 

 cases they are more or less evenly covered, some sparingly and some 

 profusely, with small blotches, spots, or dots of pale "clay color," 

 pale "cinnamon," or, more rarely, with deeper shades of "cinnamon- 

 rufous" ; often there are underlying blotches or spots of "ecru-drab" 

 or "light cinnamon-drab." Occasionally the markings are concen- 

 trated around the larger end, but usually they are quite evenly dis- 

 tributed. 



The measurements of 50 eggs average 29.80 by 22.36 millimeters; 

 the eggs showing the four extremes measure 35.10 by 23.10, 31.50 by 

 24.64, 27.18 by 20.57, and 28.96 by 20.32 millimeters. 



Young. — In his unpublished manuscript on the birds of the Carib- 

 bean lowlands of Central America, kindly lent me, Alexander F. 

 Skutch devotes considerable space to his studies of the care and 

 feeding of the young of the local race of the pauraque {Nyctidromus 

 dlMcolUs alhicollis). As the habits of the different races of this 

 species probably do not differ materially, it seems pertinent to in- 

 clude here some of his remarks on this subject. He says that "dur- 

 ing the day male and female take turns on the eggs, relieving each 

 other every two or three hours. The male is usually found incu- 

 bating in the early morning. At night, I have found only the 

 female covering the eggs." Other species of goatsuckers have been 

 reported as moving their eggs to a place of safety after being dis- 



