388 Qiiail and Grouse of the Pacific Coast 



occasion, and the artless trust they have for a 

 moment reposed in you suddenly seems the sub- 

 limity of art. 



Thus acted once the mountain-quail, and so he 

 still acts in those sections where he has not yet 

 learned the duplicity of man. But in most cases 

 he has learned in the school of experience a very 

 different style of art. And there are few scholars 

 more apt in learning about modern guns and pow- 

 ders ; the scratching of tenderfoot leggings against 

 the stiff arms of the wild cherry will now start up 

 a silent leg-energy that will leave one wondering 

 if such a thing as the mountain-quail ever really 

 existed. 



This quail can live at or near sea level appar- 

 ently as well as the valley-quail. But it loves the 

 wooded glens and singing brooks of the higher 

 ranges, and is at home from where the timber 

 begins to cast enough shade at about three thou- 

 sand feet, to far away up the slopes where the gray 

 squirrel whisks his bushy tail no more ; where the 

 lavender of the band-tailed pigeon is seen only as 

 it drifts over the deep blue of the caiion far below, 

 and where the coyote, the fox, and the wildcat 

 bring no more anxiety. Though sometimes seen 

 where the arcades of alder that arch over the hiss- 

 ing brook run out into lowland willows, it is, in 

 the southern part of California, a bird of the high 

 mountains. On the great San Pedro Martir of 



