THK DUSKY POOE-WILL. 159 



for the right s[)Ot, when she Abav a fcAv yards and ahghted. A single egg la}' 

 there in a slight depression on the clean and somewhat coarse gruA'cl, which 

 was rather smooth for a few feet about. Around was the usual brush}' chaparral 

 cf the wash. The egg was Ijrought to me by the bo-s' in the evening, with the 

 bird, and a slightly smaller one had been taken the day jjrevious from the same 

 nest." 



Mr. Lawrence kindly presented these eggs to the United States National 

 Museum collection, as well as the parent. This is not quite a typical Plialrmop- 

 tihtfi nuttaUi caUfonilcus, but it approaches this subspecies closer than the true 

 P. nuftalli. The fact that the female returned to lay her .second egg in the same 

 spot from which the first had been taken the da}' before shows how tenacious 

 these birds are to a locality once chosen for a nesting site. To fiu'thcr confirm 

 this, Mr. Rolla H. Beck writes me that he shot two of these Poor-'wills in June, 

 1894, in Monterey County, within a few feet of the spot where lie tried to kill 

 one with a fishing pole two years previously. 



^Ir. Walter E. Bryant, in his "Catalogue of the Birds of Lower California," 

 makes the following remarks about this subspecies: "Noted at several jilaces 

 betA\'een Tia Juana and San Pedro Martir by ]Mr. Belding. Mr. Anthony has 

 met ^^dth it up to 8,000 feet altitude, and says it winters in the low hills near 

 the coast. Poor-wills were heard every evening on the steep hillsides at 

 Comondu and at various localities. The only specimen secured, a male, was 

 taken at Pozo Grande, March 19, 1889. I followed the bird some time before 

 getting a shot, and each time that it was frightened it flew about 100 }-ards and 

 alighted on cactus about 3 feet high. The Mexicans call them 'Tapa-camino' 

 when they see them in the trail at dusk; but they also call the Night-ha^\'ks by 

 the same name. At Comondu they were known as 'Cow-day,' from the almost 

 perfect resemblance of their note to those words. In upper California the 

 birds, which I have frequently heard, utter the notes rapidly, and sounding 

 'poor- will' clearly; in Lower California the sounds are given quite slowly, and 

 resemble the words 'cow-day' rather than 'poor- will.'" ^ 



The only set of eggs of this subspecies in the United States National 

 Museum collection is the one already referred to, presented by Mr. R. H. 

 Lawrence. These two eggs are indistinguishable from those of the common 

 Poor-will. Their ground color shows the same pale creamy tint, with a faint 

 pinkish tinge, and their shape is also similar. They measure 26.42 by 19.30 

 and 25.15 by 19.30 millimetres, respectively, or 1.04 by 0.76 and 0.99 by 0.76 

 inches. 



The type specimen, No. 25937 (not figured), fi-om a set of two, taken near 

 Monrovia, California, on Ma}^ 4, 1893, was presented b}' Mr. R. H. Lawrence, 

 as already stated. 



■ Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 2d series, Vol. U, 1889, pp. 287, 288. 



