62 BULLETIN 162, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Egg dates. — California (calif ornica) : 92 records, January 12 to 

 July 21 ; 46 records, May 8 to June 8. Washington and British Co- 

 lumbia : 10 records, May 11 to July 3. 



California (vallicola) : 125 records, February 9 to October 29; 63 

 records, May 1 to June 5. 



LOPHORTYX CALIFORNICA VALLICOLA (Ridgway) 

 VALLEY QUAIL 



HABITS 



The valley quail being the most widely distributed form, it shall 

 have the most complete life history of the species, as it is the best 

 known of the various subspecies. In Pasadena and vicinity, southern 

 California, it is a common dooryard bird, coming regularly into the 

 city to feed on the lawns and to roost in the trees and shrubbery. On 

 Dr. Louis B. Bishop's lawn, in the thickly settled part of Pasadena, 

 one might see from 10 to 20 of the pretty birds almost any afternoon 

 after 4 o'clock. Although rigidly protected and regularly fed, they 

 seemed very nervous and shy ; if they saw us moving, even at a win- 

 dow, they would run or fly into the shrubbery. J. Eugene Law has 

 a flock of 100 to 200 birds, which he feeds every morning during 

 winter on his driveway in Altadena. I was able to photograph some 

 of these birds one morning from a blind, but I found them very 

 nervous ; at the slightest noise or movement they would all fly off but 

 would soon return. Mr. Law told me that these quail all bred in the 

 vicinity, nesting commonly in the old abandoned vineyards over- 

 grown with rank grasses and weeds. They travel around in flocks 

 during winter but begin to break up into pairs during March. The 

 latest flocks I saw were two small flocks on April 1. Outside of the 

 cities and towns we saw these quail on the brush-covered hillsides, on 

 the grassy plains in the wider canyons, in cultivated fields and in the 

 fruit orchards, or almost anywhere that they can find a little cover. 

 Claude T. Barnes writes to me: 



In northern Utah the favorite habitat of the valley quail (L. c. vallicola) is 

 the patches of scrub oak (Quercus gamoellii), which grow upon the foothills of 

 the Wasatch Mountains and along the deeper stream-gullies of the valleys. It 

 is very fond, also, of fences along which, in early days, the golden currant 

 (Ribes aureum) was planted and permitted to spread along irrigation ditches; 

 in fact, any dense covert adjacent to grainflelds and near one of the many 

 crystal streams for which the region is noted suits very well this semidomesti- 

 cated bird. Many farmers, convinced of not only the aesthetic but also the 

 economic value of the quail, habitually in winter sprinkle grain upon the snow 

 about their barnyards for the quickly responding coveys. 



Courtship. — W. Leon Dawson (1923) writes: 



The Quail's year begins some time in March or early April, when the coveys 

 begin to break up and, not without some heart-burnings and fierce passages at 



