48 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
acter is so faintly marked as hardly to be noticed, and 
when this is the case it is not easy to point out any dis- 
tinctive character separating them from the Old World 
group. The division, however, is a convenient one, and 
the New World birds are sufficiently alike to be grouped 
together. 
Though most numerous in tropical America, a num- 
ber of beautiful species are found within the United 
States. Such are the plumed quail of the California 
mountains, the helmeted birds of the California low- 
lands and of the interior, the scaled quail of the south- 
west and the Massena, or Mearns, quail. 
In the United States and Mexico there are ten genera 
with forty species and sub-species belonging to the 
Odontophoride. No members of the group range north 
of the United States, except that the valley quail of 
California has been introduced on Vancouver Island, 
B. C., and that formerly the Virginia quail was found 
in small numbers in southwestern Ontario. 
