gambel's quail 73 



cavities among the sucker growths of date palms, and one was under a lava 

 rock on the mesa. In all but the last three cases the birds had excavated 

 a cup nearly as deep as it was broad and had lined it with materials brought 

 in, grass, leaves, and feathers. The breeding season commences about the 

 first of June and is hardly well under way until after the middle of that 

 month. The number of eggs in a clutch is rather consistently ten or eleven, 

 sixteen being the most we found in any one nest. 



Eggs. — He gives the average measurements of 80 eggs as 32.3 

 by 24.7 millimeters. The measurements of 15 eggs in P. B. Philipp's 

 collection average 31.8 by 24.3 millimeters; the eggs showing the 

 four extremes measure 33.6 by 25.4, 29.7 by 23.4, and 31.3 by 23.1 

 millimeters. 



LOPHORTYX GAMBELI GAMBELI Gambel 



GAMBEL'S QUAIL 



HABITS 



Gambel's quail is also very appropriately called the desert quail, 

 for its natural habitat is the hot, dry desert regions of the South- 

 western States and a corner of northwestern Mexico. Its center of 

 abundance is in Arizona, but it ranges east to southwestern New 

 Mexico and El Paso, Tex., and west to the Colorado and Mohave 

 Deserts in southeastern California. On the western border of its 

 range it is often associated with the valley quail and has been known 

 to hybridize with it. 



This beautiful species was discovered by Dr. William Gambel " on 

 the eastern side of the Californian range of mountains in 1841 " and 

 named in his honor, according to John Cassin (1856), who gives us 

 the first account of its distribution and habits, based largely on notes 

 furnished by Col. George A. McCall. He did not meet with it 

 west of the Colorado Desert barrier in California or east of the Pecos 

 River in Texas. 



We found Gambel's quail very common in southern Arizona, 

 especially in the lower river valleys, where the dense growth of 

 mesquite (Acacia glandulosa) afforded scanty shade, or where they 

 could find shelter under the spreading green branches of the palo- 

 verdes, which in springtime presented great masses of yellow blos- 

 soms. They were even more abundant in the thickets of willows 

 along the streams or in the denser forests of mesquites, hackberries, 

 and various other thorny trees and shrubs. We occasionally flushed 

 a pair as we drove along the narrow trails, but more often we saw 

 them running off on foot, dodging in and out among the desert 

 underbrush until out of sight. My companion on this trip, Francis 



