GROUSE, PARTRIDGES, QUAILS, ETC. 119 



The scaled quail live in the arid belt of scrub oak, chaparral, 

 and mesquite extending from western Texas and New Mexico across 

 southern Arizona. Dry washes and gulches in the foothills seem 

 to be their favorite haunts, but they may be found almost anywhere 

 not too far from water, even in valleys and out on open plains with 

 only scattered brush and cactus for cover. 



xVs the bluish gray birds run from you over the gray ground, 

 dodging this way and that among the bushes, the most conspicuous 

 thing about them is the white tuft of their crest, and from its sug- 

 gestion of the cottontail they have been well dubbed cottontops. 

 Perhaps because they are so protectively colored they usually trust 

 to their feet to carry them out of harm's way, rarely taking flight 

 unless hard pressed. But when a flock does scatter, the birds are 

 astonishingly hard to find, though but a few yards away. 



While shy in some places, they seem to be naturally rather trust- 

 ful, and one of the most vivid mental pictures one carries away 

 from their country is of a flock of the trim, delicately tinted quail 

 standing together amoug the bushes, looking up out of their mild 

 brown eyes with quiet interest and curiosity. 



Though met with so commonly, the quail are more often heard 

 than seen. In the Pecos River country, where the rare blue sky 

 comes low to the chaparral on the level plain, from the sun-filled 

 brush day after day rings their companionable pe-cos , pe-cos' . The 

 note, though sadly nasal, soon falls on the ear as one of the most 

 musical of desert sounds, for like the smell of the sagebrush and 

 larrea it carries tiie charm of the big open plains. 



293a. C. s. castanogastris Breivst. Chestnut-bellied Scaled 

 Partridge. 



Ijike the scaled partridge, but upper parts browner, under parts deeper 

 buffy or more rusty brown, belly with a brown patch in the male, some- 

 times indicated in the female. 



Distribution. — Resident in Lower Sonoran zone from Eagle Pass through 

 the lower Rio Grande valley in Texas to Coahuila and Nuevo Leon, 

 Mexico. 



Nest. — Usually a hollow in the sand, under shelter of a clump of 

 weeds, grass, or prickly pear, slightly lined witli dry g-rass. Eyys : about 

 15, white to buffy, distinctly and unifonnly spotted. 



GENUS LOPHORTYX. 



General Chararters. — Crest distinct from feathers of crown, narrow at 

 ba.se, and recurved, the feathers inclosed between the more or less ap- 

 l)n'ssed webs of the anterior plume ; tarsus slightly shorter than middle 

 toe; wing four inches or more ; tail about four fifths as long as wing; 

 sexes dilfereut. 



