The California Quail 231 



jay, snake, or four-footed creature. This is unfortunate, because Quails 

 often select places for their nests near houses or on cultivated lands. 



Very rarely one will find a Quail's nest in which the eggs are just 

 hatching, and the young have such an instinct for hiding that they will 

 actually run to cover with half of the egg-shell still clinging to their backs ! 

 The tiny youngsters give a little weak-voiced peep or twoj and then all 

 is quiet. They would be stepped on and crushed before they would 

 make their hiding-place known ! They run about in a most lively way by 

 the time they are two or three days old, and are often to be seen along 

 the less-frequented roads in summer time. 



Like chickens, the Quail love to scratch in the dust, and a dusty 

 road, without too many passers-by, has a strong attraction for them. It 

 is a pretty sight to see the old ones leading the broods in such places, 

 stopping to pick up seeds here and there, with their 

 head-plumes bobbing each time they give a peck at a J*"*' 



seed, wallowing in the dust now and again, but ever 

 with a watchful eye for danger; while the youngsters run hither and 

 thither, now scattering a little, then closing up again at a warning from 

 the old ones, covering the dust with the tracks of their little feet, and 

 gradually working their way along the road. 



Each flock of Quails has its own special domain, and never wanders 

 far away; and in the summer, before the birds are made wild by the 

 opening of the shooting-season, any one passing often over a road early 

 in the morning, or late in the afternoon, may see the same flock again and 

 again, and watch the youngsters grow. While the Quails scatter out in 

 pairs in the nesting season, and keep their broods separate for a little 

 time when still very young, they soon begin to band together; and where 

 they are plentiful the bands become larger and larger as fall approaches, 

 until, in places, they number hundreds in a flock. But in the more thickly 

 settled country they are sadly diminishing, and one may find only a small 

 band of ten or twelve living near a spring where he Used to see a hundred. 



While the California Quail is very wary in some ways, it often takes 

 up its abode in the vicinity of houses, and even in cities where there are 

 gardens with shrubbery. Unlike the eastern Quail the Bobwhite which 

 spends the night on the ground, the California Quails invariably roost 

 in hushes or trees, and sometimes take possession of a 

 garden, and even walk around the porches of houses ^" ' 



where protected from marauders. 'But let anyone try 

 to get near them, and off they go, with their peculiar whirring of the 

 wings. This bird can be more or less domesticated by keeping it in an 

 enclosed place, and sometimes it nests in confinement, but it seldom gets 

 really tame. 



In some parts of the State, especially in the southern interior, these 

 Quails will run long distances, instead of flying, when disturbed by the 

 hunter often as far as half a mile. In the more wooded parts they fly 

 inio trees, where they manage to hide themselves in such a manner 



