MASKED BOBWHITE. 



Colinus ridgwayi. 



The masked bobwhite is very little larger than the 

 Virginia bobwhite. It has the whole under side of the 

 head black and the white stripe over the eye is very 

 narrow or sometimes disappears entirely. The neck 

 and chest below the black throat is uniformly cinnamon 

 or reddish, like the other lower parts. The female is 

 almost exactly like the female of the Texas bob- 

 white, but usually has a strong band of cinnamon color 

 across the upper part of the chest. 



There are no special differences in habit among the 

 various forms of bobwhite quail, except those which de- 

 pend on their surroundings the character of the coun- 

 try which they inhabit. The masked bobwhite, or Ridg- 

 way's quail, was described by Mr. Brewster from speci- 

 mens sent on from Mexico by F. Stevens. Previ- 

 ous to that, however, Herbert Brown of Tucson, 

 Arizona, had sent on specimens which were erroneously 

 identified as Grayson's bobwhite, a Mexican species not 

 known to occur in the United States. 



In a paper entitled "Arizona Quail Notes," published 

 in Forest and Stream in 1885, Mr. Brown writes about 

 this species in the following words : 



61 



