32 Brown, Conditions of Bird Life tn Arizona. (as 
the valleys Gambel’s Partridges were evermore to be met with, 
while the Blue or Scaled were almost as common over much of 
the same country. The Massena, occupying the highest ranges, 
were, naturally, better protected and thus escaped the general 
doom. ‘They were, however, never very numerous and soon 
became exceedingly rare, but when conditions again became favor- 
able they seemed to recover from their losses more readily than 
did their congeners, and in a few years were again to be found in 
their old time numbers. Of the Masked Bob-white but little can 
be said. ‘The few that were then known to exist dropped out of 
sight altogether and it was not till the spring of last year that I 
could learn of one being in the country. At that time two small 
bunches were reported to me, one on the upper Santa Cruz, the 
other, to my surprise, high up on the eastern slope of the Babo- 
quivari Mountains. Heretofore I had never known them to range 
higher than the foothills. 
Although the cattle industry is slowly recuperating from its 
great loss it will never again assume its former proportions, for 
the lessons thus taught will not soon be forgotten. The ranges 
were foolishly overstocked, and thus many owners of big herds 
were financially ruined by their covetousness, but under the most 
favorable circumstances it will be years before the life, once so 
common to the desert country, recovers from the shock. In the 
cultivated valleys, and country adjacent thereto, it is again on 
its feet, but the great reaches of desert are still tenantless. Sub- 
sequent to the big drouth I traveled several hundred miles across 
country and did not see a dozen Quail a day where formerly I 
had seen hundreds. 
The Gambels area hardy bird and under ordinary conditions 
multiply rapidly, and, although not susceptible of domestication, 
increase enormously in the cultivated districts. In 1889 and 1890 
there was, so I was informed by the express agent, shipped out 
of the Salt River valley 3000 dozens. In 1887, I think, the first 
game law was introduced in the territorial legislature. The bill 
originated in the Tucson Gun Club, and its purpose was largely 
the protection of ‘Quail,’ but so great a pest .were the birds 
regarded by the ranchmen in the Salt River valley that the legis- 
lators from Maricopa County threatened to kill the bill unless the 
