756 SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — GALLIN.E — ALECTOROPODES. 



lars reddish-brown, usually with a grayish cast; back, rump, and upper tail-coverts minutely 

 variegated with blackish, pale brown, and grayish-white, the black usually prevailing, but 

 variable in amount. Wing-coverts rufous, each feather barred with blackish and edged and 

 tipped with whitish ; primaries dusky, edged and scalloped internally with whitish ; secondaries 



externally dusky, barred 

 and freckled with pale 

 brown and yellowish- 

 white ; inner secondaries 

 and scapulars edged 

 with yellowish - white 

 (very broadly so on in- 

 ner edges), and other- 

 wise variegated. Tail 

 above bluish-gray, mi- 

 nutely freckled and 

 waved with whitish ; tail 

 below gray, faintly and 

 irregularly barred and 

 waved with grayish- 

 white. Bill black ; feet 

 horn-color; iris brown. 

 Length 9.75; extent 

 14.2.5; wing 4.50; tail 

 2.75; tarsus 1.20. The 

 female resembles that 

 sex of C. ^^!. texensis so 

 closely as not to be read- 

 ily distinguished. The 

 species is closely related 

 to C. graysoni of Mex- 

 ico, and may yet be found 

 to intergrade therewith. 

 Southern Arizona and 

 Sonora, where it has- 

 long been known as a game bird, though long unrecognized as a species by ornithologists; I 

 heard of it there in 1864-65, though I never had a specimen. It calls " Bob-white," like the 

 rest of its kind, has the same habits, and its eggs are indistinguishable. On its first intro- 

 duction to our Fauna it was mistaken for C graysoni of Lawrence, Ann. Lye N. Y. viii, 

 May, 1867, p. 476, and thus appeared as Coliniis graysoni in the A. 0. U. List, 1886, p. 168,. 

 No. 290. It was first described as C. ridgwayi by Brewster, Auk, Apr. 1885, p. 199, and 

 figured as such by Allen, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. July, 1886, pi. 23. Ortyx ridgwayi 

 CouES, Key, 3d ed. 1887, p. 884. Colinus ridgwayi A. 0. U. Lists, 1st and 2d eds. No. 291. 

 OREOR'TYX. (Gr. opos, oros, a mountain ; oprv^, ortux, Lat. ortyx, a quail. The gram- 

 matical gender is in question ; the Greek word is masculine, the Lat. feminine. In ornithol- 

 ogy, good usage is about equally divided.) Plumed Quail. Head adorned with an arrowy 

 crest of 2 slender keeled plumes, 3-4 inches long in ^ when fiill-devek»ped ; present in 9) shorter. 

 Bill and feet stout ; tarsus equal to middle toe and claw. Tail about f tlie wing, broad, rounded, 

 with long coverts and 12 rectrices. Size large ; colors massed in large areas ; sexes alike- 

 Eggs bufi"-colored. One large handsome species. 



Fig. 509. — Masked Bob White, 

 D. G. Elliot.) 



(From " Game Birds of North America," by 



