96 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



inconvenience, great extremes of temperature. They 

 are seemingly at ease among the burning sands of the 

 desert, where for months the thermometer daily marks 

 a hundred, and may reach a hundred and forty, 'in the 

 best shade that could be procured/ as Colonel McCall 

 says; and they are equally at home, the year round, 

 among the mountains, where snow lies on the ground 

 in winter. 



"The quail's food is made up of various substances. 

 Like the rest of its tribe, it is chiefly granivorous, eat- 

 ing seeds of every description; but fruits and insects 

 form a large portion of its fare. It devours insects of 

 such sorts as it can capture, and particularly those kinds 

 that infest plants. In the fall it gathers cherries and 

 grapes, and other 'fruits/ properly speaking, as well as 

 the various berries not usually so called. It visits patches 

 of the prickly pear (Opuntia), to feed upon the soft, 

 juicy tunas, that are eaten by everything in Arizona, 

 from men and bears to beetles. In the spring it shows 

 fondness for the buds of different plants, particularly 

 mesquite and willow; birds shot at this time are fre- 

 quently found with sticky bits of the buds about their 

 bills. But though they thus feed so extensively upon 

 this substance containing salicine, I never noticed that 

 the flesh acquired a bitter taste. There is, as yet, little 

 cultivated grain in Arizona, but doubtless some future 

 historian will have to add our cereals to the bird's list, 

 and speak of Gambel's quail as frequenting old corn 

 and wheat-fields and the neighborhood of hayricks, 

 where a large share of its food is to be gleaned. Like 



