CALIFORNIA PARTRIDGE. 
T HIS is the species found in the coast region of Cali- 
fornia, northward to Vancouver’s Island, as sepa- 
rated from its paler relative of the interior of Oregon, 
southward to Cape St. Lucas. 
It is a very handsome bird, perhaps not quite equal in 
this respect to its beautiful cousin Gambel’s Partridge, 
with which the uninitiated frequently confound it, but 
with this solitary exception no other species can dispute 
successfully its claim to be the handsomest member of 
the family. 
It was not indigenous to the State of Washington, its 
range not extending farther north than Oregon, but it 
was introduced both there and in the islands of Puget 
Sound, and also in Vancouver Island (where I met with 
it), and has increased greatly in all these places. It is a 
resident species, does not migrate, frequents cafons and 
bushy hillsides, also fields, is often seen in enormous 
flocks, as if many broods had united together, and runs 
rapidly over the ground, preferring to escape if possible 
by this method than to make use of its wings. These 
great flocks or packs are only formed in the fall of the 
year after the breeding season is over,and occasionally the 
number of birds gathered together will amount to several 
hundred, and they are then wilder than at other times. 
In the spring these packs gradually break up, and the 
birds commence to mate in March, if the winter has not 
lingered longer than usual. 
This species, like many others that have been persist- 
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