44 BULLETIN 162, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



of one walking stealthily away among the underbrush. It prefers 

 to steal away quietly rather than show itself by flying. All the 

 earlier writers speak of it as uncommon or comparatively rare; it 

 was doubtless often overlooked because of its secretive habits. It is 

 even more of a mountain bird than the preceding, ranging up to 

 10,000 feet in summer. W. Leon Dawson (1923) says of its haunts: 



Save in the extreme northwestern and southeastern portions of its range, 

 the Mountain Quail is to be found in summertime somewhere between 2,000 or 

 3,000 and 9,000 feet elevation, according to local conditions of cover. It inhabits 

 the pine chaparral of the lesser and coastal ranges, but its preference is for 

 mixed cover, a scattering congeries of buck-brush, wild currant, service berry, 

 Symphori-carpus, or what not, with a few overshadowing oaks or pines. In the 

 northwestern portion of its range the bird comes down nearly to sea-level and 

 accepts dense cover. In the southeastern portion, namely, on the eastern slopes 

 of the desert ranges overlooking the Colorado Desert, the Mountain Quail, 

 according to Mr. Frank Stephens, ventures down and nests at an altitude of 

 only 500 feet. It is closely dependent here upon certain mountain springs, 

 which it visits in common with L. c. vallicola and L. gambeli. Under certain 

 conditions, therefore, its breeding range overlaps that of the Valley Quail. 

 There are several instances on record of nests containing eggs of both species, 

 and at least one hybrid has been found, conjectured to be between O. p. confinis 

 and L. c. califoiiiica. 



Gourtshijy. — On this subject I can find the brief statement from 

 Bendire (1892) that " the mating season begins in the latter part of 

 March and the beginning of April, according to latitude and altitude. 

 The call note of the male is a clear whistle, like whu-ie-whu-ie, 

 usually uttered from an old stump, the top of a rock, or a bush." 



Grinnell and Storer (1924) write: 



With the coming of the warm days of late spring, and on into early summer, 

 the males perch on fallen logs, open spaces on the ground, or even on branches 

 of black oaks, and announce their amatory feelings by giving utterance to 

 their loud calls with such force and vigor that these resound through the 

 forests for a half-mile or more, commanding the attention of all within hearing. 

 One type of call consists of but a single note, quee-ark, and this is repeated 

 at rather long and irregular intervals. One bird timed by the watch, June 3, 

 1915, gave his calls at intervals of 7, 6, 8, 5, 8, 6, 7, 5, 7, 9, and 9 seconds, 

 respectively, and continued at about the same rate for a long time afterward. 

 This intermittent utterance lends to the call a distinctiveness and attractiveness 

 which would be lost if it were given in quicker time. 



Nesting. — Of the nest Bendire (1892) says: 



The nest, simply a slight depression in the ground scratched out by the bird, 

 and lined perhaps with a few dry leaves, pine needles, grasses, and usually 

 a few feathers lost by the hen while incubating, is sometimes placed alongside 

 an old log, at other times under low bushes or tufts of weeds, ferns, and, 

 when nesting in the vicinity of a logging camp, a favorite site is under the 

 fallen tops of pine trees that have been left by wood-choppers, the boughs of 

 which afford excellent cover for the nest. 



Mr. L. Belding found a deserted nest of this species in a cavity of the 

 trunk of a standing tree near Big Trees, California, but in this locality they nest 



