SCALED PARTRIDGE. 5 1 



fact before they ever saw a human being, and decamp at 

 once whenever a man appears. 



This Partridge is a dweller of high table-lands and is 

 found at an altitude of 6000 to 7000 feet, and subsists 

 mainly upon various kinds of small seeds, grain if any is 

 grown in the vicinity, berries, buds or tender parts of 

 plants, and insects of different kinds. When alarmed it 

 utters a curious low hoom-\\\i^ sound, at other times 

 a short, quick note, difficult to indicate by letters. There 

 is no difference in the plumage of the sexes, the female 

 being as gayly clad as the male, and in this respect the 

 species constitutes an exception among the other varie- 

 ties of Partridge inhabiting the United States, for in all of 

 these, the females are rather differently arrayed from the 

 males, with conspicuous markings indicating their sex. 

 The nesting season begins about May, and generally two 

 broods are raised, and sometimes even three. The 

 slightly formed nest is placed on the ground under some 

 sheltering bush, or in a corn, or other grain field, in alfalfa 

 grass, and sometimes in potato fields. The eggs, in num- 

 ber usually about a dozen, vary from creamy white to 

 pale buff in color, and are covered with various-sized red- 

 dish brown or fawn-colored spots, regularly distributed 

 over the shell. Sometimes these spots are so small that 

 they are barely distinguishable. The shape is subpyri- 

 form. This species seems to prefer to make its nest on 

 the upper mesas, even among the foothills of the moun- 

 tain ranges, returning in winter, if the weather is severe, 

 to the lower lands and river bottoms. I have never met 

 the coveys in thickets, or amid underbrush, or in timber 

 even if very open, but it is evidently a bird of the treeless 

 country and cacti-covered plains. Doubtless, like many 

 another species, its habits vary in different localities, and 

 it suits itself to its surroundings. If by chance Gambel's 



