244 Birds of Colorado 
90, p. 88; Bendire 92, p. 153 ; Lowe 94, p. 268 ; Cooke 97, pp. 85, 208 ; 
Henderson 03, p. 235 ; 09, p. 232 ; Gilman 07, p. 154; Warren 08, p. 21; 
09, p. 15; Rockwell 08, p. 165; Hersey & Rockwell 09, p. 118. 
Description.—Male—Above silvery-grey, finely mottled and marked 
with velvety-black bars and angular spots; primaries and outer 
secondaries tawny, barred, with dusky, mottled like the back at the tips ; 
tail with four central feathers like the back, outer one chiefly dusky 
with white terminal patches, about -75 inch long; below a white 
throat-patch, breast almost black with a few whitish spots, abdomen 
pale buffy irregularly barred with brown; under tail-coverts plain 
buffy ; iris dark brown, bill and legs dusky, the latter purplish. 
Length 7-0; wing 5-5; tail 3-0; culmen -32; tarsus -65. 
The female is very like the male, but the white terminal bands of the 
tail are narrower, about -5 inch, and tinged with tawny. 
Distribution—The dryer parts of western North America, breeding 
from south-east British Columbia and North Dakota south to the 
Mexican border, east to Kansas and Oklahoma, west to the Cascades 
and Sierra Nevada ; in winter through eastern Mexico to Guatemala. 
Tho Poor-will is a fairly common summer bird in Colorado. It 
reaches El Paso co. early in May, Austins Bluffs, May 3rd (Allen & 
Brewster), and has been found nesting both in the plains and in the 
parks to about 8,000 feet, while Lowe both saw and heard it as high as 
10,000 feet in the Wet Mountains, 
The following are notices: Estes Park, nesting (W. G. Smith apud 
Bendire), Boulder co., nesting in the hills (Gale), Barr Lake district, 
rare (Hersey & Rockwell), Denver, May 15th, and Fort Garland, 
August (Henshaw), Middle Park, breeding (Carter), Craig, June (Warren, 
03), Mesa co., 6,500 to 8,000 feet in Plateau Valley (Rockwell), Montrose 
co., breeding (Warren 09). 
Habits.—Unlike the other members of the Goatsucker 
family, the Poor-will is not confined to wooded districts ; 
it is quite as much at home on the open prairie and on 
the desolate sage-brush plains. It is thoroughly crepus- 
cular, coming out at dusk and noiselessly pursuing 
night-flying moths and beetles ; it also gathers a good 
deal of its prey on the ground. Like the Owls it ejects 
the hard and indigestible parts of its food in the form 
of pellets. During the day it remains quiet on the ground, 
sheltered from view by a bush or a bunch of grass. It 
has a melancholy wailing song, ‘‘ Poor-will,” heard at 
