PLUMED QUAIL LOPHORTYX CAMBELL 435 



though they thus feed so extensively upon this substance, containing 

 salicine, I never noticed that the tlesh acquired a bitter taste. There is 

 as yet little cultivated grain in Arizona; but doubtless some future 

 historian will have to add our cereals to the bird's list, and speak of 

 Gambel's Quail as frequenting old corn and wheat-fields, and the neigh- 

 borhood of hay-ricks, where a large share of its food is to be gleaned. 

 Like other Gallinw, it swallows quantities of sand and gravel to 

 facilitate, it is supposed, the trituration in the gizzard of the harder 

 kinds of food. 



I believe that the Quail moults at least twice a year ; but the spring 

 change is apparently less complete, and certainly more gradual thnn 

 that of the fall, the birds seeming rather to furbish up a part of their 

 plumage than to furnish themselves with entirely new attire. By the 

 latter i^art of summer* the i)lumage is faded and worn with incubation 

 and the care of the young, and the renewal begins as soon as the latest 

 brood is reared. The process is a long one, and birds are rarely found 

 at any season in such poor condition as to be unfit for preservation, nor 

 are they ever depriv^ed of flight. No crest is occasionally found for a 

 short time in early autumn ; but new feathers generally sprout before 

 all the old ones are dropped. I think they are shed from behind for- 

 ward, so that the front ones are lost the last. Tbe fully-developed crest 

 is a striking and beautiful ornament, hardly to be surpassed in stylish- 

 ness and jaunty effect. It averages an inch and a half in length, and 

 sometimes reaches two inches in the most vigorous males ; in the 

 females it is rarely over an inch. The male's is glossy jet-black ; the 

 female's has a brownish cast. The number of feathers composing it is 

 variable; five or six is usual, but there maybe ten. They all spring 

 from a single point on the top of the head — just behind the transverse 

 •white line that crosses the crown from eye to eye. The leathers are 

 club-shaped, enlarged at the tip, and curling over forward, together 

 forming a helmet-shaped bundle. The webs are loose; they bend back- 

 ward from the shaft, so that this forms the front border of the feather. 

 Each feather is thus folded or imbricated over the next succeeding, and 

 the whole are packed into a single fascicle in this manner. The crest is 

 freely movable, and its motions are subject to voluntary control. It is 

 usually carried erect, but sometimes drops forward, or obliquely over 

 one eye; and occasionally is allowed to hang backward, though it can- 

 not be made to lie close over the occiput. The crest sprouts when the 

 chicks are only a few days old, about the time that the lirst true 

 leathers appear upon the wings and tail. It then consists of three or 

 four feathers, forming a short tuft, brown instea<l of black, not club- 

 shaped, nor recurved, nor imbricated. Even in the adult female, though 

 the crest has the same general characters as that of the male, it is only 

 slightly, if at all, recurved, and is always shorter, as we have seen. 



The hen may easily be distinguished from the cock by other differ- 

 ences ; she is smaller, averaging an inch less in length ; she has no pure 

 black, white, or chestnut about the head, and wants the great black 

 sj)ot upon the belly. Similar in other respects, there is still a general 

 dullness and want of tone about all her colors, as well as less .sharpness 

 of definition of the several differently colored areas. The sexual char- 

 acters are evident before the birds ;ire half grown. The chicks in the 

 downy state, a few days old, do not in the least resemble either parent. 

 They are very prettily marked ; in fa(;t they are more attractive before 

 they have any feathers than afterward, until mature; just as little 



*I speak of obaurvations as made at Furt Wliipplu, uuless tbu cunti-ary is st.^ted. 



