602 ORNITHOLOGY. 



dozen individuals was flushed on the 27th of December, 1867, and one of 

 them secured. Before they rose they uttered a confused chuckhng, some- 

 what hke the alarm-notes of the eastern Bob-White {Ortyx virginianus), and 

 after they had been separated for some time, commenced calling to one 

 another in a manner exactly similar to young Turkeys {Meleagris) under 

 the same circumstances. Its love-notes we have never heard. 



In western Nevada, where the statement seems to be generally believed, 

 we were infoi-med that the Mountain Quail was not an inhabitant of the 

 country eastward of the summit of the Sierra Nevada until after the settle- 

 ment of that country by the whites, when they began following the wagon- 

 roads over the mountains for the purpose of picking up the grain scattered 

 along the way. This may possibl}^ be true; but judging from the fact that 

 a number of essentially Californian birds and mammals, and even plants, 

 occur plentifully along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, in an exactly 

 similar manner, we rather incline to the opinion that it is a true native, in 

 support of which view of the case, we were informed by the Indians at the 

 Truckee Reservation that it had always been found on the neighboring 

 mountains. 



List of specimens. 



319, <? ad.; O.irsou City, Nevada, November, 1867. (Presented by Mr. H. G. 

 Parkei'.) 



386, i ad.; Virginia Mountains, near Pyramid Like, December 27, 1867. 11;^— 

 17 — 5| — If— T6 — 1/fi — H — i- Bill, dull black, more browaisli terminally; iris, deep 

 brown; tarsi and toes, dilute brownish. 



440, 3 ad.; Carson City, Nevada, March 10, 1868. (Cedar-groves.) 11|_16|— 

 5| — 4^. Bill, black, slightly brownish terminally; iris, vaudyke-brown ; tarsi and toes, 

 dilute sepia. 



441, 9 ad. (mate of No. 440); same locality and date, l^—l^—oi—^. Same 

 remarks. 



LoPnOETYX CALIFORNICUS. 

 California Valley Quail. 



Tetrao californicus, HuAVf, Nat. Misc., — , pi. 345. 



Lophortyx californicus, Bonap., Comp. & Geog. List, 1838, 42. — Baird, Birds N. 

 Am., 1858, 644; Cat. N. Am. Birds, 1859, No. 474.— Cooper, Orn. Cal., I, 

 1870, 549.— COUES, Key, 1872, 238; Check List, 1873, No. 391; Birds N.W., 

 1874, 439.— B. B. & R., Hist. N. Am. Birds, III, 1874, 479, pi. XLiv, figs. 1, 2. 



The " Valley Quail" of California was met witli only among the western 



