288 Bird Studies. 



middle feathers are tipped with ivJiitc. The region in front of the eyes is black, 



and the head and neck are more coarsely barred than the back with similar 



Welch's colors. The throat is white. The rest of the neck, breast, 



Ptarmigan. a-^d sides much like the back. The belly is white. The 



Lagopus weichi Brewst. female at this season is more broadly barred with black 



and grayish white mottled with buff. The central tail feathers are like the 



back and the others dusky or blackish. In winter the birds are white, with 



dusky tails which have the centre feathers tipped with white, and the region in 



front of the eye is dusky or black. 



The Quail or Partridge, the Bob-white of our fields, is so well known as 



to need but a word in the way of description. The forehead, a line over 



each eye, and the throat are white in the male bird, and 



° "^ ' . , these same parts are rich buff in the female. The upper 



Colinus virginianus (Linn.). I^ ^ ^ 



parts are variegated with tawny chestnut, black gray, and 

 buff. The lower parts are dusky just below the throat patch, then there is 

 a mottled area of pinkish brown, black, and gray. The lower breast is indis- 

 tinctly barred black and white on a tawny gray ground. This barring be- 

 comes more defined towards the belly. The sides and flanks are streaked 

 with reddish brown, broken by buffy white spots with narrow black borders. 

 The belly is grayish white, and the feathers below the tail reddish chestnut. 

 The birds are about ten inches long. 



The Quail is found in the Eastern United States, west to Eastern Min- 

 nesota. South they reach to middle Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. 

 They range as far north as Southern Maine and are generally non-migratory. 

 They breed on the ground, building rude nests in grassy places, and laying 

 from ten to fifteen white eggs. These are about an inch and a fifth long by 

 more than nine tenths of an inch broad. 



The congener of our Bob-white in Florida is a much smaller bird, being 



about eight inches and a half long. The plumage is similar, but is much 



c-1 -J D u u-,. darker throughout ; the areas of dark browns and blacks 

 Florida Bob-white. ^ > 



Colinus virginianus flori- of the back beiug more extensive, and the rump grayer. 



danus (Cou«). -pj^g black, below the white throat patch, is often much 



emphasized, forming a conspicuous band across the breast. The barring of 



the chest is more evenly black and white, and the chestnut of the sides and 



