MOUNTAIN QUAIL 269 



were usually about 4 broods of Mountain Quail brought off in the vicinitj- 

 of his home, each comprising 10 to 15 young, but that by Christmas or 

 New Year's Day the entire number of birds would be reduced to 2 or 3. 

 A brood of 14 of the summer of 1915 was reduced to 4 by early November. 

 Mr. Bolton attributed this decrease to wildcats and stated that tracks of 

 these animals were to be seen in the dust of the road almost every morning 

 in summer. 



To this we would add that Gray Foxes probably account for the death 

 of a number of quail. On December 24, 1915, in Yosemite Valley, a steel 

 trap set for carnivores was found in the morning to contain the leg and 

 foot of a Mountain Quail. Near-by were feathers of the same species of 

 bird with some dung of the Gray Fox. The inference is easy. A quail 

 had stumbled into our trap and the fox had taken advantage of the meal 

 thus afforded, without himself falling victim to any of the other traps 

 in the setting. But the Gray Fox and the Wildcat are, as the bunches 

 of feathers which we found so often elsewere clearly testified, sufficiently 

 agile to capture these birds in the open. Nevertheless, the large broods 

 enable enough representatives of this species to live through the winter to 

 insure renewal of the population. The young Mountain Quail are rather 

 slow to attain adult size; coveys seen in late September and even early 

 October contained individuals only about two-thirds grown. 



The food of the Mountain Quail comprises both animal and vegetable 

 matter and is quite varied in character. Witness the following array of 

 items from the crop of a single bird taken June 6, 1915, at Bean Creek, 

 near Coulterville : Two or more seed pods of Leguminosae; flowers of 

 manzanita (ArctostaphyJos mariposa) ; pieces of fern leaves; green berries 

 of Ceanothus cnneatus; several unidentified seeds; 2 nymphs and 2 adult 

 'bugs' (Membracid Hemiptera) ; many ants {Camponotus sp.) ; several 

 wingless grasshoppers; 1 small centipede; 4 beetles (2 Chrysomelidae, 2 

 Carabidae) ; and several small pieces of bone. 



Another crop, from near El Portal, November 21, 1914, held 2 seeds 

 of wild pats {Avena fatua) ; 30 seeds of yellow pine {Pinus ponderosa) ; 

 more than 400 seeds and many leaves of clover {Trifolium ohtusiflorum) ; 

 2 ladybird beetles (Hippodamia convergens). Another from El Portal 

 taken on December 1, 1914, had only parts of manzanita berries {Ardo- 

 staphylos mariposa) ; and one taken from a bird on Feliciana Mountain, 

 October 30, 1915, had 2 capsules and 148 seeds of croton (Croton sp.). It 

 is evident that the Mountain Quail feeds on whatever is abundant : flowers 

 and leaves of plants and insects in spring, seeds and leaves of plants in 

 fall when insects are not so abundant. 



