212 Brown, Masked Bob-white. \k^^\ 



and were by him identified as Ortyx graysoni, a Mexican species 

 found in the neighborliood of Mazatlan. He expressed surprise 

 at the bird being in Arizona. For my own collection I at once 

 procured another pair. These latter birds were seen, examined, 

 and commented on by W. E. D. Scott, E. W. Nelson, F. Stephens, 

 and H. W. Henshaw, none of whom, with the exception of Scott, 

 questioned the correctness of Mr. Ridgway's identification. 

 Scott's remark was, after he had examined the birds a number of 

 times, " I think they ought to be further inquired into," or words to 

 that effect. Stephens was then in the country collecting for Mr. 

 Brewster, of Cambridge, Mass. When in Sonora, just south of 

 the Arizona line, he killed a male. On his return to Tucson we 

 compared it with my specimens and found it to be the same bird. 

 Mr. Stephens did not see the fragmentary skins that were sent to 

 Mr. Ridgway through Dr. Grinnell, as stated erroneously by Prof. 

 J. A. Allen in his very excellent article on ' The Masked Bob- 

 white of Arizona, and its Allies,'^ but he saw and compared his 

 bird with a pair of perfect skins then in possession of the writer. 

 Later, Stephens sent his bird to Mr. Brewster, by whom it was 

 described as a new bird and named in honor of Mr. Ridgway ; 

 hence we have Colinus ridgwayi. 



It was never my good fortune to see an egg of this bird. When 

 the late Major Bendire was stationed at Camp Buchannon, he 

 found a broken shell of what he then judged to have been the egg 

 of an Ortyx. The Ramsey Canon collector, elsewhere referred to, 

 claimed to have taken an egg from the body of the bird he said 

 he had killed, but as his one story rests on no better foundation 

 than the other it can be taken for what it is worth. About 1885, 

 I think, I offered to Mexican vaqueros, riding the Sasabe Flat and 

 Altar Valley ranges, one dollar per egg for the first nest of Bob- 

 white eggs found for me. Word was subsequently sent to me that 

 a nest containing six eggs had been found on the mesa near the 

 mouth of Thomas Cafion, on the eastern side of the Baboquivari 

 Mountains. Unfortunately these precious things were lost through 

 the cupidity of the finders whose expectations ran to more eggs, 

 but while waiting for the increase the nest was robbed of the eggs 



1 Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. I, No. 7, 1886, pp. 273-290. 



I 



