36 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



difficult to shoot more than one at a time; were they to follow each other, as 

 most gregarious birds do, the hunter would have a better opportunity to 

 exterminate the whole covey. Occasionally, but rarely, takes to the trees when 

 flushed, aud remains squatting close to limb and practically invisible. 



Voice. — The Texas bobwhite has a range of varied calls similar 

 to those of its eastern relative, but the notes are said to be less loud, 

 clear, and ringing. 



Enemies. — Major Bendire (1892) quotes William Lloyd, as follows: 



They are very insuspicious, and their low notes, uttered while feeding, attract 

 a good many enemies. I have seen foxes on the watch, and tbe Marsh Harrier 

 perched on a clump of grass on the lookout, waiting for them to pass. But the 

 many large rattlesnakes found here are their worst enemies. One killed in 

 May had swallowed five of these birds at one meal; another, a female evidently 

 caught on her nest and a half dozen of her eggs ; a third, four Bob Whites and 

 a Scaled Partridge. Tbe young are also greatly affected and many killed by 

 heavy rains in June and July ; numbers perish then from cold and protracted 

 wet weather. When alarmed by a Hawk sailing overhead they run under the 

 mother for protection, as domestic chickens do. 



COLINUS BIDGWAYI Brewster 



MASKED BOBWHITE 

 HABITS 



This well-marked species once inhabited a narrow strip of country 

 in southern Arizona, where its range extended for not more than 

 40 or 50 miles north of the Mexican boundary. It has long since 

 been exterminated in Arizona and has now perhaps disappeared en- 

 tirely from its more extensive range in Sonora. Herbert Brown was 

 the first to discover the presence of this quail in Arizona, and we are 

 indebted to him for practically all we know of its former distribution 

 and habits. He first met the bird in Sonora, hearing its note and 

 supposing it to be our eastern bobwhite. He says of this incident 

 (1904) : 



It is not easy to describe the feelings of myself and American companions 

 when we first heard the call bob white. It was startling and unexpected, and 

 that night nearly every man in camp had some reminiscence to tell of Bob White 

 and his boyhood days. Just that simple call made many a hardy man heart- 

 sick and homesick. It was to us Americans the one homelike thing in all 

 Sonora, and we felt thousands of miles nearer to our dear old homes in the 

 then far distant States. 



In the spring of 1884 a pair of these quail was taken on the eastern 

 slope of the Baboquivari Mountains, Arizona, and brought to Brown 

 as specimens; but because of his absence they were allowed to spoil 

 and were thrown away. Meantime he had reported to a local paper 

 that a pair of bobwhite quail had been taken in Arizona, and the note 

 was republished in Forest and Stream. This aroused the interest of 



