480 



The Outer's Book 



these birds, but 1 desire first to name them 

 and to give the localities where they occur. 



This subspecies, in so far as its range is 

 concerned, was referred to by Coues, in the 

 last edition of his "Key," as being "the pre- 

 vailing form on both sides of the Cascade 

 range in Oregon, the Sierra Nevadas in Cali- 

 fornia, and- even the Coast Range in the latter 

 State from about latitude 34 degrees to Lower 

 California; in fine, it is the ordinary Moun- 

 tain Qrail of most parts of California, aside 

 from the restricted Coast Range of the pre- 

 ceding, and also the one which extends E. 

 into Nevada. The distinction is a subtle one, 

 but I am willing to let the subspecies pass 

 muster with a hundred others of which I' 

 have no favorable private opinion" (p. 758). 

 This subspecies is a good one, Cones' dictum 

 to the contrary, it having been recognized by 

 Gould as early as the year 1837, not 1857 as 

 Doctor Coues gives it to us. 



Finally, we have the San Pedro Quail, a 

 subspecies confined to "San Bernardino and 

 San Gabriel Mountains, Southern California, 

 south to Hansen Laguna and San Pedro Ma- 

 tir Mountains, Lower California." This bird 

 bears the scientific names of O. p. con finis, be- 

 stowed upon it on account of its being found 

 on a range which borders or adjoins the 

 range of another subspecies of the same 

 genus (Latin). It was first described by 

 Mr. Anthony in the Proceedings of the Cali- 

 fornia Academy of Sciences (2d series II, 

 Oct. 11, 1889, page 74). 



Wilson knew nothing of any of these west- 

 ern quails, as that part of the United States 

 was unexplored in his time ; while Audu- 

 bon's figures of the "Californian Partridge" 

 and the "Plumed Partridge" present so many 

 inaccuracies that it would hardly be a profit- 

 able undertaking to occupy valuable space 

 here for their pointing out. His descriptions 

 of these birds are made up from what Town- 

 send wrote him about them, and from a 

 specimen or two he had had loaned him. 

 Audubon also figures a "Welcome Partridge" 

 from "the north-west coast of America" 

 (Ortix neoxenus), which was originally de- 

 scribed and named by Vigors (Garden and 

 Menagerie of Zool. Soc. ii, p. 311), and 

 which may or may not be a young bird of 

 one of the Mountain Quails ; in any event, 

 we have no "Welcome Partridge" in this 

 country. 



Sometimes they used to put jokes up on 

 Audubon ; and many years ago, the veteran 

 taxidermist of New York City, Mr. John G. 

 Bell, who was out West with him on some 

 expedition or other to the Missouri River, 

 once told me how he "fooled old man Au- 

 dubon with the skin of a vireo" which he, 

 Bell, had so manipulated that it appeared to 

 be a new species ! 



By referring to Fig. 7 of this Part we 

 may study such of the characters of the 

 form and plumage of one of these Moun- 

 tain Quails, as will serve as an aid to dis- 



tinguish any bird of the genus from any 

 other species of the family. It will be noted 

 that the head is not only slightly crested, but 

 it bears likewise a long, backward-extending 

 feather-plume composed of two slender, dark- 

 colored or black keeled feathers. They are 

 about three or four inches in length, being 

 longer in the male than in the female, and 

 normally appear as only one feather, not as 

 two, as drawn by Audu'bon and- followed by 

 Coues without criticism. These birds have 

 stout bills and feet and twelve feathers in 

 the tail. Males and females are alike, barring 

 some slight differences as the one just pointed 

 out. They are big, stout quails of great 

 beauty of plumage, the color areas 1 eing 

 definitely massed. 



In the Mountain Quail (O. />. picta} the 

 throat is of a chestnut color, bordered with 

 black and white, the latter being outermost 

 and continued round under the lower mandi- 

 ble. Forehead, ashy gray; back, wings and 

 tail, olive-brown ; upper and lower breast, 

 slatey-gray, shaded above with olive-brown, 

 and- marbled below with black in fine pencil- 

 ings. Tail, fuscous and similarly marked; 

 wings, olive-brown, with the inner secondaries 

 and tertiaries bordered with buff ; primary 

 feathers also fuscous, like the body-color of 

 the tail-feathers. Belly, chestnut, with the 

 sides barred with broad bars of black and 

 white (Fig. 7), the latter sometimes shaded 

 with rufous-white, which latter is the color 

 of the feathers of the tibiae, the flanks, and 

 the hinder abdominal area. Crissum black, 

 lined with clear chestnut, the black having a 

 velvety appearance. Bill dusky, and the feet 

 are of a pale brown. With this description, 

 aided by Fig. 7, any one will be able to pick 

 out a Mountain Quail of the genus Oreortyx. 

 Passing to the Plumed Quail (O. p. plumi- 

 fera), we find that it is very much like the 

 last one described ; the olive-brown area, how- 

 ever, is less, and the slaty-gray is correspond- 

 ingly extended on the back and underparts ; 

 forehead, soiled white instead of ashy-gray. 

 In typical cases the back of the neck is like 

 the breast, and 1 not olive-brown like the dor- 

 sum in the Mountain variety. I am inclined to 

 think, from what I have read and heard about 

 this subspecies, that, at the limits of its range, 

 specimens are very much like the birds on 

 the contiguous areas ; in other words, in some 

 places these various subspecies of Oreortyx 

 shade into each other. 



It is said that the subspecies named above, 

 the San Pedro Quail (O. p. confinis}, can 

 only be distinguished by possessing "grayer 

 upper parts and thicker bill," a fact I have 

 never had the opportunity to personally 

 verify. However, the subspecies has been 

 generally recognized by our best ornitholo- 

 gists, and it is therefore quite likely that, in 

 the case of typical specimens from the San 

 Pedro Martir Mountains, we will find birds 

 constantly exhibiting the characters claimed 

 for this subspecies. 



