mains in single broods. When startled they huddle to- 

 gether and flush in a bunch. They are good hiders and 

 lie well to the dog. They are seldom found far from 

 water and rarely in heavy brush. They are fond 

 of stubble or corn fields and the grassy nooks along 

 the fences. Many efforts have been made to acclimatize 

 this species farther south in California, but they have 

 all proved failures on account of the dryer climate and 

 the lack of insects during the rearing season of their 

 young. They must have a damp climate where the vege- 

 tation remains green, thus furnishing an abundance of 

 insects during the early summer on which to feed their 

 young. For until a bobwhite is nearly grown it lives 

 almost entirely upon insects. 



Color Male General color of the upper parts, light 

 buff, marked with triangular blotches of brown; head 

 and back of the neck, dark chestnut; forehead, gray; 

 light stripe from above the eye passing down the side 

 of the neck; throat, white or very light buff, faintly 

 bordered with dark brown or black; breast, light buff 

 with the feathers tipped with brown; flanks chestnut 

 mixed with black and white. 



Female Generally lighter, and without the white 

 throat and light breast. 



Nest and Eggs The nests are rude depressions on 

 the ground beneath a fence rail or fallen limb, or in a 

 bunch of thick grass or brush. The eggs number any- 

 where from fifteen to twenty and of a pure white color. 



Measurements Total length about nine inches; wing, 

 4% inches; bill, %. 



THE MASKED BOBWHITE 

 (Colinus ridgewayi) 



A smaller species of the bobwhite, known as the 

 masked bobwhite, were reasonably plentiful along the 

 border of southern Arizona and south through the state 

 of Sonora, Mexico. Like the typical bobwhite they were 

 strictly a field and grass bird. But through the heavy 

 pasturing of that section, together with a series of dry 

 seasons denuding the whole country of such cover as 

 would be necessary for their protection from hawks and 

 vermin, they have become nearly if not quite extinct. 

 They differed from the eastern bobwhite in that the 

 male had a black throat instead of a white one and a 

 bright cinnamon breast. The female differed also in 

 having a light buff throat, and generally of a lighter 

 color. 



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