234 
NUTTALL’S WHIP-POOR-WILL. 
when she in a few moments found a shelter of willow branches, &c., under 
which both remained until the storm had subsided. 
. The next morning the wind was still blowing too hard for us to proceed, 
and as on the former day, the hunters went off in many directions. Mr. J. 
G. Bell, on his return from a walk up the river shore, where he had shot 
some Wild Pigeons, started the individual now before you from the ground. 
It flew a few yards, and my young companion took it for our common 
Whip-poor-will ; but on its second rising and flying again before him, he 
saw that it was a much smaller bird, fired at it, and fortunately brought it 
to me, fresh and beautiful though dead. 
On the evening of the next day, about ten o’clock, my friend Harris 
called me to hear the notes of this bird. We had removed to an island 
a mile or so below where the Whip-poor-will had been procured ; and on 
ascending the bank and entering the dried, rank grass of the prairie, the 
notes of the birds came at once on our ears, for there were two of them, 
both anxiously desirous, one might have thought, to convey to us all that 
they could perform in lieu of a song. The sounds we heard, were indeed 
those of a Whip-poor-will, cut short of much of their compounds, for it was 
reduced to the syllables Oh-will, Oh-will, Oh-ioill, repeated often and as 
quickly as is the fashion of our own common species. 
Those Birds were then on their passage southward, and I regret to say 
that nothing can now be added to their habits. I am also sorry that no 
specimens of the female were seen or procured. 
This pretty species I have, as you perceive, named after my friend 
Thomas Nuttall, whose worth as a man and a scientific naturalist, are 
both so well known. 
Nutt all’s Whip-poor-will, Caprimulgus Nuttallii, Aud. 
n- 
Prairies of Western Missouri, and the Northern territories. 
Adult Male. 
Bill black, iris dark hazel. Feet reddish-purple, the scales and claws 
darker. The general colour of the upper parts is dark brownish-grey, lighter 
on the head and medial tail feathers, which extend beyond the others half an 
inch, and all of which are streaked and minutely sprinkled with brownish- 
black and ash-grey. The quills and coverts are dull cinnamon colour, 
spotted in bars with brownish-black ; the tips of the former mottled with 
light and dark brown. Three lateral tail feathers barred with dark brown 
and cinnamon, and tipped with white. Throat brown, annulated with 
black, a band of white across the fore neck ; beneath the latter black mixed 
