SCALED PARTRIDGE. 51 
fact before they ever saw a human being, and decamp at 
once whenever a man appears. 
This Partridge is a dweller of high table-lands and is 
found at an altitude of 6000 to 7000 feet, and subsists 
mainly upon various kinds of small seeds, grain if any is 
grown in the vicinity, berries, buds or tender parts of 
plants, and insects of different kinds. When alarmed it 
utters a curious low boom-like sound, at other times 
a short, quick note, difficult to indicate by letters. There 
is no difference in the plumage of the sexes, the female 
being as gayly clad as the male, and in this respect the 
species constitutes an exception among the other varie- 
ties of Partridge inhabiting the United States, for in all of 
these, the females are rather differently arrayed from the 
males, with conspicuous markings indicating their sex. 
The nesting season begins about May, and generally two 
broods are raised, and sometimes even three. The 
slightly formed nest is placed on the ground under some 
sheltering bush, or in a corn, or other grain field, in alfalfa 
grass, and sometimes in potato fields. The eggs, in num- 
ber usually about a dozen, vary from creamy white to 
pale buff in color, and are covered with various-sized red- 
dish brown or fawn-colored spots, regularly distributed 
over the shell. Sometimes these spots are so small that 
they are barely distinguishable. The shape is subpyri- 
form. This species seems to prefer to make its nest on 
the upper mesas, even among the foothills of the moun- 
tain ranges, returning in winter, if the weather is severe, 
to the lower lands and river bottoms. I have never met 
the coveys in thickets, or amid underbrush, or in timber 
even if very open, but it is evidently a bird of the treeless 
country and cacti-covered plains. Doubtless, like many 
another species, its habits vary in different localities, and 
it suits itself to its surroundings. If by chance Gambel’s 
