62 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



boldly out to look at you, and seems generally anxious 

 to let you know that he is -about. He lives and moves 

 the whole year round beneath the eye of everyone famil- 

 iar with the land beyond the pavement, and there is no 

 bird whose private life and business methods are so easy 

 to become thoroughly acquainted with. 



The valley quail's peculiar colors of slate-blue, gray, 

 white, and cinnamon, and the long, jaunty plume of jet 

 hanging forward over his bill, are now too generally 

 known to need special description here. In size he is 

 a little smaller than Bob White, and quite inferior to Bob 

 in flavor, though still a very good bird, except when in 

 the hands of a cook whose sole knowledge of quail is the 

 cabalistic phrase, "quail on toast." In such hands the 

 combination is almost as good as chip on pasteboard. 



This quail apparently breeds but once a year, and sel- 

 dom raises a new brood if the first be destroyed, as 

 young ones are rarely seen late in the season, as is often 

 the case with Bob White. The number of eggs is from 

 twelve to seventeen, and though the bird is smaller, its 

 eggs are larger than those of the eastern quail, and are 

 well spotted with chocolate blotches. It shows a remark- 

 able instinct in not breeding, after winters of too low 

 rain-fall, in those sections where the winter rains are 

 occasionally too light for a good growth of vegetation. 

 In such cases it remains unmated all summer, in the large 

 flocks into which it was banded in the fall, and so con- 

 tinues until the next season of sufficient rain. 



Few birds have so many different notes as the valley 

 quail, and in few do pitch, tone, and accent vary so 

 much, even with the same individual. The common call 

 is a flute-like, penetrating o-7ii-o, rapidly repeated four 

 or five times, but varied often, so that it sounds like 

 Jco-loi-o. Again, the accent is shifted until it sounds 

 like tuck-a-hoe, and sometimes the accent is so heavy on 



