284 



NESTS AND EGGS OF 



417. Whip-poor-will (From Biehm). 



ever knew them to be In the East; sometimes three or four were heard whistling at 

 once. They were restless and rather shy. July 4, a female was shot as she flew 

 from her nest, which, as usual, was only a very slight depression in the ground, but 

 in this case was overhung by a rock. Mr. Brewster describes the egg which this nest 

 contained as white with a dull gloss, apparently immaculate, but upon close inspec- 

 tion reveals a few faint blotches of the palest purple, so faint that they might pass 

 for superficial stains were it not for the fact that they underlie the external polish. 

 This specimen measures 1.17x.87.* 



418. POOB-WILL. Phalwnoptilus nutalUi (Aud.) Geog. Dist. — Western 

 TJnited States, from the Sierra Nevada eastward to Eastern Nebraska and Eastern 

 Kansas north to Central Idaho and Montana, and south to Southern Mexico. ■ 



Nuttall's Whip-poor-will, or Poor-will, as it is called, is found to be more or 

 less abundant throughout various States and Territories of the West — in the interior 

 valleys and foot-hills of California, Oregon and Washington, and in Arizona, New 

 Mexico, Texas, Colorado, etc. Colonel N. S. Goss mentions it as a common summer 

 resident of Kansas, and may be looked for on the high prairies and rocky grounds 

 along the banks of streams. Begins laying the last of May, depositing two white, 

 unspotted eggs upon the bare ground, in the thick growth at the edge of timber; also 

 at the roots of a bunch of bushes or briers upon the prairies. Mr. Emerson states 



• William Brewster's Notes on Some Birds from Arizona and New Mexico. 

 Nutt. Club, VI, pp. 69-71; and Collection of Arizona Birds, Vol. VII, 2U-212. 



Bull. 



