508 GAME BIEDS OF CALIFORNIA 



Keyes (1905, pp. 15-16) found several nests of the Mountain 

 Quail in the Sierras while making a trip through the mountains from 

 Sonora to Lake Tahoe. One found on June 15 was composed of 

 pine needles and measured eight inches in diameter and three inches 

 in depth at the center. It contained seven eggs. An additional egg 

 was found in this nest on the morning of the 17th, and on the 19th 

 still another. At eleven o'clock a.m. on the 20th the nest still con- 

 tained nine eggs, but by one o'clock p.m. of the same day a tenth had 

 been added. 



Another nest found June 15 contained seven eggs. Eight eggs 

 M^ere in the nest when it was visited on the 16th, nine were found on 

 the 18th, ten on the 20th, and eleven on the 21st. These instances 

 would seem to show that the frequent statements that an egg is laid 

 each day until the set is complete are not literally true. 



Still another nest found by the same observer on June 20 was well 

 constructed of coarse dry grass, a few small twigs, and many breast 

 feathers from the bird, and was well concealed in thick brush. The 

 remarkable complement of twenty-two eggs was found in it, these 

 being arranged in two layers, the upper of which contained but three 

 eggs. It was not possible to determine whether so many eggs were 

 the product of two females or of just one, but the former is more 

 likely. 



"Where the Mountain and Valley quails nest in close proximity it 

 sometimes happens that eggs may be laid by one species in the nest 

 of the other. H. J. Lelande flushed a Mountain Quail from a nest in 

 the Linda Vista Hills west of Pasadena, May 7, 1897, which contained 

 ten eggs of this quail and four of the Valley Quail. All were fresh 

 (Grinnell, 1898, p. 19). A nest found jn Alpine Valley, Sonoma 

 County, held eight eggs of the coast race (picta) of Mountain Quail 

 and two eggs of the California Quail (Carriger, MS). 



The eggs of the Valley Quail and Mountain Quail are totally 

 different, the latter bird laying plain, unmarked, buff-tinted eggs, 

 the former conspicuously brown-spotted eggs with whitish ground- 

 color. Nineteen eggs of the Mountain Quail from Cisco, Placer 

 County, measure in inches, 1.27 to 1.46 by 0.97 to 1.05, and average 

 1.33 by 1.00. In shape they vary from elongate ovate with a rela- 

 tively sharp point at small end to almost pear-shape. Two sets from 

 Sonoma County (and hence probably of the race Oreortyx picta 

 picta), aggregating fourteen eggs, are similar in shape and color. 

 They measure 1.28 to 1.43 by 1.01 to 1.11, and average 1.37 by 1.08. 



While general statements ascribe as many as fifteen as the usual 

 complement of eggs for the Mountain Quail (for instance, see Beld- 

 ing, 1879, p. 439), exact data as far as available show an average of 

 only eleven eggs per set. This is decidedly below the average for the 



