THE FROSTED POOR- WILL. 157 



55. Phalaenoptilus nuttalli nitidus Brewster. 



FROSTED POOR-WILL. 



Phalaenoptilus nuttalli nitidus Brewster, Auk, IV, April, 1887, 147. 



(B 113, part; 266, part; R 355, part; 398, part; U 418a.) 



Geographical range : Apparently similar to that of the Poor- will. 



The Frosted Poor-will, a lighter-colored and grayer bird than Nuttall's Poor- 

 will is likely to prove only a color phase of the latter, especially as the known 

 range of the two appears to be practically identical, was first described by Mr. 

 William Brewster in "The Auk" (Vol. IV, 1887, p. 147), from specimens taken 

 on the Nueces River, Texas, February 27, 1886. It has since then been met 

 with in southeastern California, Arizona, southern New Mexico, Colorado, and 

 Kansas. Its general habits appear to be entirely similar to those of the preced- 

 ing species, but there is as yet not sufficient material available to enable one to 

 come to any positive conclusions about the proper status of this pale form. 

 The late Col. N. S. Goss, in his work on the "Birds of Kansas, 1891" (p. 346), 

 makes the following pertinent remarks on this subspecies: "This bud does not 

 appear to differ in habits, actions, or size from P. nuttalli, and I am impressed 

 with the thought that it may possibly prove to be a dichromatic phase, like that 

 of the Screech Owl (Megascops asio), rather than a subspecies, as now entered." 



The very fact that it can not be considered as having a range of its own 

 where the typical Poor-will is not also found seems to confirm this view. One 

 of the lightest-colored specimens of this pale form which I have seen (an adult 

 female) was secured in Death Valley, California, on January 28, 1891, and is now 

 in the ornithological collection of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 in this city. Other specimens from the same region are typical PRaltznoptilus 

 nuttalli, and both phases winter to some extent in these desert regions. A set of 

 eggs of this race, taken with the parent, in Riley County, Kansas, on June 26, 

 1889, by Mr. Eben M. Blachly, are now in the Goss collection in the Public 

 Museum at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They were laid upon the bare ground, 

 under a bunch of grass upon the prairie, near the edge of a cornfield; they 

 measure 1.05 by 0.79 and 1.03 by 0.78 inches; or 26.67 by 20.07 and 26.16, 

 by 19.81 millimetres. There are no absolutely identified eggs of this sub- 

 species in the United States National Museum collection, and they are 

 indistinguishable from those of the Poor-will. 



