BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA 255 



KEY TO THE FORMS (ADULTS IN FRESH PLUMAGE) OF OREORTYX PICTA 



(DOUGLAS) 



a. Brown of the back darker, between dark olive-brown and sepia, and extending 

 anteriorly over the mantle and nape to the base of the occipital crest (south- 

 western Washington, western Oregon, and western California, south to San 



Luis Obispo County) Oreortyx picta palmeri (p. 255) 



aa. Brown of the back paler, seldom darker than dark buffy brown, and grayer, and 

 usually not extending anteriorly beyond the interscapulars, the mantle usually 

 slate-gray but occasionally washed with buffy brown. 

 h. Brown of the black more olivaceous than grayish; the mantle washed with 

 buffy brown (southern Washington east of Cascades to Nevada). 



Oreortyx picta picta (p. 258) 

 bb. Brown of the back more grayish than olivaceous, the mantle almost always pure 

 slate-gray. 

 c. Breast paler, between light neutral gray and deep gull gray (southern and 



west-central California) Oreortyx picta eremophila (p. 262)''- 



cc. Breast darker, between neutral gray and dark gull gray (Baja California). 



Oreortyx picta confinis (p. 261) 



OREORTYX PICTA PALMERI Oberholser 



Northwestern Mountain Quail 



Adult male. — Forehead narrowly white or pale buffy white; crown 

 slate-gray to slate color; occipital crest of long narrow black feathers; 

 rest of occiput, nape, and anterior interscapulars similar but heavily 

 washed with dark olive-brown (sometimes to the virtual exclusion of the 

 slate color) ; rest of interscapulars, back, lower back, rump, upper tail 

 coverts, and upper wing coverts dark olive-brown ; innermost secondaries 

 and their greater upper coverts similar but internally edged with white 

 to pale ochraceous-white and very narrowly tipped with the same; outer 

 secondaries and the primaries fuscous washed with olive-brown on their 

 outer webs ; rectrices fuscous very finely speckled and vermiculated with 

 olive-brown ; lores and narrow superciliary stripe white ; chin white ; 

 throat and cheeks dark bright chestnut becoming blackish under the 

 eye, posterior to the lores, and on the posterior edge of the cheeks and 

 throat, a broad white line from the eye runs posteroventrally to the latero- 

 posterior corner of the throat separating the chestnut area from the slate- 

 gray to slate-color sides of the neck and of the breast ; posterior breast 

 feathers slate-gray to slate color very broadly tipped with dark bright 

 chestnut ; sides of lower breast and upper and lateral parts of abdomen dark 

 bright chestnut broadly barred with white, the white bars often proximally 

 edged with blackish brown; flanks tawny-russet with concealed, sub- 

 terminal blackish bands ; thighs pale tawny-buff ; middle of lower abdomen 



'"' Doubtfully distinct. This race is an intermediate group combining characters of 

 picta and of confinis. In series it can be made out as a faintly marked aggregate. 



