MASKED BOBWHITE 37 



Robert Ridgway, to whom fragments of the two birds were sent for 

 identification. He pronounced them Ortyx {Colinus) graysoni, a 

 Mexican species. 



During that same year Frank Stephens collected in Sonora, Mexico, 

 a male masked bobwhite for William Brewster, which was described 

 by Mr. Brewster (1885) as the type of a new species, which he named 

 Colinus ridgwayi. This whole interesting history is given in more 

 detail, with reference to several published articles on the subject, in 

 an excellent paper by Dr. J. A. Allen (1886), to which the reader 

 is referred. 



Brown (1904) was told that "in early days they were plentiful in 

 Ramsey's Canyon in the Huachucas, and also on the Babacomori, a 

 valley intervening between the Huachuca and Harahaw ranges." 

 Speaking of conditions prior to 1870, he says : 



At that time the valley was heavily grassed and the Apache Indians notori- 

 ously bad, a combinrtion that prevented the most sanguine naturalist from 

 getting too close to the ground without taking big chances of permanently 

 slipping under it. For many years Indians, grass, and birds have been gone. 

 The Santa Cruz, to the south and west of the Souoite, is wider and was 

 more heavily brushed. Those conditions gave the birds a better chance for 

 life and for years they held tenaciously on. Six or seven years ago I was told 

 by a ranchman living near Calabasas, that a small bunch of Bob-white Quail 

 had shortly before entered his barnyard and that he had killed six of them at 

 one shot. It was a grievous thing to do, but the man did not know that he 

 was wiping out of existence the last remnant of a native Arizona game bird. 

 Later I heard of the remaining few haviug been occasionally seen, but for 

 several years now no word has come of them. 



I never found them west of the Baboquivari Mountains, and from my knowl- 

 edge of the country thereabouts I am inclined to fix the eastern slope of that 

 range as their western limit. Between that and Ramsey's Canon, in the 

 Huachucas, is a distance of nearly one hundred miles. Their deepest point of 

 penetration into the Territory was probably not more than fifty miles, and that 

 was down the Baboquivari or Altar valley. 



As to the causes of the bird's disappearance, he writes: 



The causes leading to the extermination of the Arizona Masked Bob-white 

 (Colinus ridgwayi) are due to the overstocking of the country with cattle, 

 supplemented by several rainless years. This combination practically stripped 

 the country bare of vegetation. Of their range the Colinus occupied only 

 certain restricted portions, and when their food and shelter had been trodden 

 out of existence by thousands of hunger-dying stock, there was nothing left 

 for poor little Bob-white to do but go out with them. As the conditions in 

 Sonora were similar to those in Arizona, birds and cattle suffered in com- 

 mon. The Arizona Bob-white would have thriven well in an agricultural 

 country, in brushy fence corners, tangled thickets and weed-covered fields, 

 but such things were not to be had in their habitat. Unless a few can still 

 be found on the upper Santa Cruz we can, in truth, bid them a final good-bye. 



Nesting. — Verj 7 little is known about the nesting habits of the 

 masked bobwhite. Brown (1904) offered a reward of $1 an egg 



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