38 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



for the first nest found for him. A nest containing six eggs was 

 found on the mesa on the eastern side of the Baboquivari Mountains. 

 " Unfortunately these precious things were lost through the cupidity 

 of the finders, whose expectations ran to more eggs, but while wait- 

 ing for the increase the nest was robbed of the eggs that were then 

 in it. I was, however, notified of the find, but when I reached there 

 I found only an empty nest, a bowl-shaped depression in a bunch of 

 mountain grass." 



Major Bendire (1892) quotes from a letter received from Otho C. 

 Poling, relating his fruitless attempt to find a nest and reporting 

 the finding of an egg in the oviduct of a female, which he shot on 

 May 24, 1890. 



Col. John E. Thayer has a set of seven eggs in his collection, pre- 

 sented to him by Miss Engel, of Cleveland, Ohio. It was collected 

 in Sonora, Mexico, on May 4, 1903. The nest was " placed in sand 

 under a bunch of dry grass." The female was closely observed, 

 but as the females of this and some other Mexican species are prac- 

 tically indistinguishable, there may be some doubt about the 

 identification. 



Eggs. — The eggs of the masked bobwhite are indistinguishable 

 from those of the eastern bobwhite. The single egg in the United 

 States National Museum is pure white and unstained, as it was taken 

 from the oviduct of a bird by Herbert Brown. This egg measures 

 32.5 b} r 25 millimeters. The egg recorded by Major Bendire, pos- 

 sibly the Poling egg, measured 31 by 24 millimeters ; I do not know 

 just what has become of this egg, or how Major Bendire got the 

 measurements. 



Colonel Thayer's eggs are slightly smaller; they average 29.6 

 by 23.4 millimeters; the largest egg measures 30.5 by 23.6 and the 

 smallest 28.3 by 23.1 millimeters. 



Plumages. — The downy young of the masked bobwhite is un- 

 known. In the juvenal plumage, which is worn for only a short 

 time in summer and early in fall, the sexes are alike and closely 

 resemble the similar stage in the Texas bobwhite. Doctor Allen 

 (1889) describes a young male, taken on October 10 and still partly 

 in first plumage, as follows. 



The top of the head is blackish, with each feather narrowly bordered with 

 ashy brown. The hind neck, sides of the neck, and jugulum are yellowish 

 white, with each feather barred at the tip with black. The scapulars are 

 brownish, each feather with a rather broad whitish shaft stripe, and barred 

 with yellowish white and black, and the wing coverts have much the same pat- 

 tern, but the barring is pale cinnamon and brown. The throat is pure 

 white, with new black feathers appear ng irregularly along the sides of the chin 

 and upper throat. Breast pale browi . with light shaft stripes and faintly 

 barred with blackish, passing into brownish white with more distinct bars 

 on the upper abdomen. The new featheps ulong the sides of the breast and 



