MEARNS'S QUAIL 85 



The haunts of Mearns's quail are generally far removed from the 

 habitations of man. Major Bendire (1892) quotes William Lloyd as 

 saying that, in Texas, " the favorite resorts of the Massena Partridge 

 are the rocky ravines or arroyas that head well up in the mountains. 

 They quickly, however, adapt themselves to changed conditions of 

 life and are now to be seen around the ranches picking up grain and 

 scratching in the fields. In the vicinity of Fort Davis, Texas, they 

 have been exceptionally numerous and ma} 7 frequently be seen sitting 

 on the stone walls surrounding grainfields in Limpia Canon." 



In Arizona we found them in the lower parts of the canyons and 

 in the foothills of the Huachucas and the Chiricahua Mountains, 

 where the ground was rough and more or less rocky, with tall tufts 

 of grass, low bushes, scattered mescals, and small oaks. They range 

 up the sides of rocky ravines and into the mountains up to 9,000 

 feet in summer and are seldom found below 4,000 feet. In Apache 

 County, according to Major Bendire (1892), "the favorite localities 

 frequented by this species during the breeding season are thick 

 live-oak scrub and patches of rank grass, at an altitude of from 

 7,000 to 9,000 feet. Here they are summer residents only, descend- 

 ing to much lower altitudes in winter." Henry W. Henshaw (1874) 

 writes : " This beautiful partridge is quite a common resident in 

 the White Mountains, near Apache, Ariz., where, in summer, it seems 

 to shun the open valleys, and keeps in the open pine-woods, evincing 

 a strong preference for the roughest, rockiest localities, where its 

 stout feet and long, curved, strong claws are admirably adapted to 

 enable it to move with ease." 



Nesting. — Major Bendire (1892) refers to two nests described as 

 slight hollows, one under a small shin-oak bush, the other alongside 

 a sotol plant. He quotes descriptions of two other nests quite fully. 

 Otho C. Poling wrote : 



I was climbing up a steep mountain side on the northeast of the Huachuca 

 Mountains, some 10 miles north of the border, when, at an elevation of about 

 S,000 feet, I flushed the female almost directly under my feet and shot it. 

 The hillside was covered in places with patches of pines and aspens, as well 

 as with low bushes and grasses. The nest was directly under a dead limb 

 which was grown over with dead grass, and so completely hidden that until 

 I had removed the limb and some of the grass it was not discernible at all. 

 The nest was sunken in the ground, and composed of small grass stems, arched 

 over, and the bird could only enter it by a long tunnel leading to it from under 

 the limb and the grass growing around it. The eggs were eight in number 

 and naturally white, but they were badly stained by the damp ground, their 

 color being now a brownish white. They were almost hatched. The female 

 must have remained on them all the time to have caused such uniform incuba- 

 tion and preserved the eggs from spoiling by the excessive dampness. 



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