76 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



cover left in the extensive thickets of small mesquite and thorny 

 undergrowth, or in the patches of large mesquite, oaks, and hack- 

 berry. While walking along the edge of a dry ditch, we flushed 

 a Gambel's quail from its nest under a tiny thorn bush. The nest 

 was a rather deep hollow lined with sticks, straws, leaves, and 

 feathers; it held 10 eggs. 



Two days later, while hunting among the giant cactuses, which 

 here were scattered over an open plain, scantily overgrown with 

 low mesquite and greasewood bushes in dry stony soil, we flushed 

 another quail from under a large mesquite bush ; way under it, at the 

 base of the trunk and almost beyond reach in the thorny tangle, was 

 its nest with 16 eggs. The next day while investigating a Palmer's 

 thrasher's nest, five feet above the ground in a cholla, we were sur- 

 prised to find in it three eggs of this quail. I have since learned 

 that it is not unusual for this quail to use old nests of thrashers or 

 cactus wrens. Perhaps the birds have learned by sad experience 

 that ground nests are less safe. 



My companion, Frank Willard, who has had much wider experi- 

 ence than I, has sent me the following notes : 



From early in May well into July and sometimes even into August nests 

 with eggs may be found. The last week of May and the first week in June 

 seem to be the height of the egg-laying season. The eggs of gambelii are laid 

 in more exposed situations than those of squamata. The most frequently 

 chosen site is at the foot of a small mesquite or other bush where a slight 

 hollow is scratched in the dry ground. There is one protection, however, which 

 the quail seems to find necessary. There must be something to shade them from 

 the hot midday sun. The scanty shade afforded by the fern leaf of the 

 mesquite is sufficient but there must be some at least. 



Two or more females lay their eggs in the same nest very frequently. I 

 have had nests under observation where two or more eggs were added daily 

 to the complement therein. It has occurred to me that this is a wise provision 

 of nature to secure a nest full of eggs with as little delay as possible so that 

 incubation could be undertaken promptly and an even hatching take place 

 without the eggs being exposed to the dry desert heat until one bird could lay 

 a full set, which averages a dozen eggs or more. A few days of exposure to 

 the dry air without the moisture from the body of the sitting bird would make 

 many of the eggs sterile. Nearly every egg in nests where incubation had 

 commenced was fertile and I seldom found more than one unhatched egg 

 among the debris of a nest from which the young had hatched and gone. 



On May 14, 1908, I went to collect a set of Gambel's quail eggs which I had 

 been watching for some time. The previous day there had been IS eggs in the 

 nest, some of them those of the scaled quail. As I looked around the large 

 rock behind which the nest was concealed I found the female quail fluttering 

 above her nest in which was coiled a large rattlesnake. With head uplifted 

 it was striking at the bird which deftly avoided the blows. On my appearance 

 the bird flew away. I prodded the snake, driving it from the nest, and then 

 killed it. Eleven rattles adorned its tail. There were 16 eggs left, all of which 

 were fresh. I foolishly neglected to open the snake and look for the two 

 missing eggs. 



