22 



The Avifauna. 



The California Partridge. 



/^N abundant resident of Alameda County, 

 J^ California, and formeily included the 

 Valley Partridge whose habitat is given in 

 Mr. A. M. Shield's article in the September 

 number of this Magazine. 



The two terms : Valley Partridge and Cali- 

 fornia Partridge of the Ornithologist are not 

 correctly recognized by the sportsman who 

 knows the partridges, or quail, as he calls 

 them, as two varieties in this State, viz. : the 

 Mountain Partridge and the Valley Partridge. 

 The former term embraces the Mountain 

 Partridge and its subspecies, the Plumed and 

 the San Pedro Partridges, while the latter is 

 the California and the Valley Partri(Iges, 

 that look alike to him. 



In this locality the California Partridge is 

 mated by the latter part of March, and eggs 

 may be found early in April, but most are 

 laid in May. Eggs under the process of 

 incubation are occasionally found in August 

 and I once discovered a bird on a nest of 

 eggs in September. These were probably 

 second sets, the first having most likely been 

 destroyed. 



This Partridge has as many if not more 

 enemies than any other ground nesting bird. 

 The collector and the ubiquitous small boy 

 do not cut any figure compared to haycutting 

 and wild animals. The scythe and the mov- 

 ing machines either kill the birds that are 

 very close si:ters, or, change the aspect of 

 the surroundings so that the birds will desert 

 their half incubated eggs. I have seen the 

 first sets destroyed by cutting the hay and 

 the second sets, which were laid in the hay- 

 cocks were scattered and ruined when the 

 hay was hauled. Strange to say, not a single 

 Partridge nest was noticed this year in a 

 thirty-acre hay field on my home, in which 

 field there were annually many nests. 



This bird prefers to nest in clearings and 

 on farms where it hopes to escape wild ani- 

 mals, but, cats kill a large number of the set- 

 ting hens, as is indicated by a few of the 

 eggs being found broken among the tangled 



grass and bunches of feathers. Another 

 casualty was noticed this year when a cow 

 trampled fourteen eggs that were almost 

 hatched. 



There were this spring at least one hundred 

 pairs of partridges on my home and I found 

 five nests of eggs within a radius of 95 to 

 1 10 feet. 



As written for the Nidiologist, it is a com- 

 mon occurrence to find this bird nesting in 

 elevated places, such as tops of vine-clad 

 sheds and fences and in crotches and hollows 

 of trees thickly covered with vines. One nest 

 noted was eighteen inches from the ground, 

 in a vine-covered cavity of a live oak. and 

 another was fully twenty feet from the ground 

 in a hollow crotch of a similar tree and well 

 concealed by ivy. The latter hollow was 

 lined with a large quantity of grass that had 

 been cut from the lawn below by the gardener 

 and had been carried to the nest, without a 

 doubt, by the birds themselves, and goes to 

 demonstrate the inventive genius of birds 

 that are not ne'^t builders exept in cases of 

 sheer necessity. In several instances I have 

 found eggs <^)f this partridge in abandoi^.ed 

 California and Spurred Towhees' nests in 

 trees and in vines, from six to twelve feet 

 from the ground, and took this year in one 

 nest Spurred Townee, ^ and California Part- 

 ridge, i-iS and a set of " Gallina Domes- 

 tica " close by ; in a clump of poison oak 

 and wild blackberry vines partridge eggs are 

 sometimes found in chicken and turkey nests 

 in the brush and in the fields. 



Clumps of prickly thistles are favorite nest- 

 ing resorts, as the sharp spines defy cats and 

 other small animals, and horses and cattle 

 avoid tramping on them. 



In 1 886 I was cutting out a large, circular 

 clump of these thistles, and was working 

 around the edge, making the clump smaller 

 and smaller until only a small bunch re- 

 mained. My hoe struck out once more and 

 I was startled by a sharp whirr and saw a 

 partridge disappear, and a lot of little oiu s 

 just hatched scrambling under protecting 

 leaves. I imitated the low chuckle of the 



