CHESTNUT-BELLIED SCALED PARTRIDGE. 
HIS subspecies, at times indifferently distinguishable 
from the Scaled Partridge, has a very restricted 
range, being found within our limits only in the lower 
Rio Grande Valley, in Texas, and across the border in 
eastern Mexico. Among the foothills of the Rio Grande, 
about one hundred miles from the coast, as stated by my 
friend Mr. Geo. B. Sennett, is the eastern limit of this 
bird. In its habits, selection of food, and character of 
the country it dwells in, it closely resembles the Scaled 
Partridge. Some specimens are strongly and broadly 
marked with chestnut on the belly, this at times being 
very dark in color; but this varies greatly, both in hue 
and in the space it covers, until some individuals are met 
with that are very difficult to assign to either the species 
or the race. They grade in a large series of examples, 
directly from one to the other, so as to make it impossible 
to say where one form begins and the other ends. This 
bird raises two broods in a season and commences to lay 
as early as March, depositing from twelve to twenty eggs 
in a slight cavity in the ground scraped out under some 
thick bushes or clump of grass, and lined with grass. 
The eggs vary from a pale creamy white to a rich buff, 
covered all over with reddish brown spots, from the size 
of a pin’s head to a considerable blotch. There is great 
variation in both color and markings, and it is very diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, at times to distinguish those be- 
longing to the two forms apart. 
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