REPORT UPON ORNITHOLOGICAL SPECIMENS. 



143 



and banded, most distinctly on sides, with transverse blackish-brown 

 bars ; tail above with indistinct bands, producing the general effect of 

 mottlings of dark-brown and white; bill dark-brown above, lighter 

 below: legs and feet light-brown (in skin). 



160. Cijrtonyx massena, (Lesson). Massena Partridge. 



This beautiful partridge is quite a common resident in the White 

 Mountains, near Apache, Ariz., where, in summer, it seems to shun the 

 open valleys, and keeps in the open pine-woods, evincing a strong 

 preference for the roughest, rockiest localities, where its stout feet and 

 long, curved, strong claws are admirably adapted to enable it to move 

 witli ease. August 10, while riding with a party through a tract of 

 piuy woods, a brood of eight or ten young, accompanied by the female, 

 was discovered. The young, though but about a week old, rose up 

 almost from between the feet of the foremost mule, and after flying a 

 few yards dropped down, and in a twinkling were hidden beneath the 

 herbage. At the moment of discovery, the parent bird rose up, and 

 then, tumbling back helplessly to the ground, imitated so successfully 

 the actions of a wounded and disabled bird that, for a moment, I 

 thought she must have been trodden upon b} 7 one of the mules. 

 Several of the men, completely deceived, attempted to catch her, when 

 she gradually fluttered off, keeping all the time just beyond the reach 

 of their hands, till she had enticed them a dozen yards away, when she 

 rose and was off like a bullet, much to their amazement. From Apache 

 southward, the species appeared to be quite numerous, always showing 

 its predilection for rocky hills and rough canons. In the canons of 

 the Gila River, toward its sources, in New Mexico, in October and 

 November, they were met with frequently, and scarcely a day passed 

 without three or four bevies being flushed. At this season they keep 

 in small bevies, and I do not remember to have ever seen more than ten 

 together, and usually from four to eight. Their tameuess and utter 

 want of suspicion is very remarkable, and the more so when contrasted 

 with the wild, timid nature of the Gambel's Partridge, inhabiting the 

 same region. I have ridden so close to a bevy sitting among the rocks, 

 that, leaning down, I could have almost touched them with my hand. 

 When a bevy is flushed, they usually separate, and fly strongly and 

 swiftly in a straight line, dropping down into the first convenient cover. 

 They lie well, requiring to be almost kicked up before taking wing. 

 The species was found in New Mexico as far north as Tulerosa. 



Description of young male. Upper parts pale-brown, each feather with 

 a medial, sharply-defined streak of pale-ochraceous, and barred with black 

 across the webs; wing coverts ashy, with transverse oval or rounded spots 

 of deep black on opposite webs ; primaries and secondaries banded trans- 

 versely with white spots; head grayish- white laterally and beneath ; the 

 whole throat unspotted; a dark-brown spot on the auriculars; the region 

 above and below finely streaked with dusky; crown more brownish, 

 spotted with black, and with whitish shaft-streaks; lower parts pale- 

 gray, inclining to plumbeous on middle of breast, each feather with a 

 terminal deltoid spot of white, bordered anteriorly by a narrow bar of 



