86 NORTH AMERICAN OOLOGY. PART I. 



does not remain in its breeding-places long after it has reared its first and only brood 

 for the season. As soon as its yonng are ready for the journey, they all depart for 

 their southern quarters, which is usually in the month of August. They are silent 

 in the breeding season, but resume their peculiar cries as soon as their young are 

 able to take care of themselves. 



ANTROSTOMUS NUTTALLII. 



Caprimulgus nuttallii, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 335. 



" Birds of Am. VII, 1844, 350, pi. ccccxcv. 

 Antrostomus nuttallii, Cassin, Syn. N. A. Birds (Illust. Birds of Cal), 1854, p. 237. 

 VuLG. — NtUtaWs Whip-poor-ivill. Parauquc (Matamoras, Tamaulipas). 



The egg represented in Plate V, fig. 58, was found among the collection of Dr. 

 Berlandier, and obtained by that gentleman in the vicinity of Matamoras in the 

 Province of Tamaulipas, Mexico. It is not positively known to be the egg of this 

 newly-discovered species, yet I have very little doubt that it is so. Its shape, mark- 

 ings, and general characteristics show it to be an egg of a Caprimulgus, and its size 

 indicates as its parent a bird not larger than this species, which is the only one now 

 knoAvn to be found in that neighborhood. The only name bestowed upon it by Dr. 

 Berlandier Avas Parauque, by which he also designated another egg, supposed to 

 be that of a Chordeiles, and which I presume to belong to the species recently 

 described by George N. Lawrence, Esq. as C. texensis} Nothing is said, in his 

 notes, of the habits of the bird described under the name of Parauque, its manner 

 of breeding, or the peculiarities of the eggs. The description of the birds is quite 

 obscure, and designates with certainty no known species. The probability is, how- 

 ever, so strong that the egg referred to is that of Ccqirimulgus nuttallii, and that 

 the one represented in Plate V, fig. 62, is the egg of C. texensis, that I have felt 

 justified in including both among the illustrations, stating only the uncertainty of 

 the ground upon which the assignment rests. 



The Caprimulgus nuttallii was first obtained by Mr. Audubon near the Rocky 

 Mountains in the Northwest Territory, and was described by him in the fifth volume 

 of the Ornithological Biography (p. 335). Nothing was observed by that writer of 

 its habits. It was obtained in Oregon by the United States (Vincennes) Exploring 

 Expedition. Specimens have been procured in Washington Territory by Drs. Cooper 

 and Suckley. Mr. T. H. Clark obtained it in Texas, and Dr. Woodhouse, in the ex- 

 pedition to the Zuiii, in passing down the Little Colorado Piver, found this species 

 quite abundant. He also met with it afterwards in the San Francisco Mountain, 

 near the same river. In the collection made by Dr. Woodhouse there are several 



^ Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. VI, 167. 



