GAMBEL'S QUAIL 97 



other Gallina, it swallows quantities of sand and gravel 

 to facilitate, it is supposed, the trituration in the gizzard 

 of the harder kinds of food. 



"I believe that the quail moults at least twice a year, 

 but the spring change is apparently less complete, and 

 certainly more gradual, than that of the fall, the birds 

 seeming rather to furbish up a part of their plumage 

 than to furnish themselves with entirely new attire. By 

 the latter part of summer (at Fort Whipple) the plu- 

 mage is faded and worn with incubation and the care 

 of the young, and the renewal begins as soon as the 

 latest brood is reared. The process is a long one, and 

 the birds are rarely found at any season in such poor 

 condition as to be unfit for preservation, nor are they 

 ever deprived of flight. No crest is occasionally found 

 for a short time in early autumn, but new feathers gen- 

 erally sprout before all the old ones are dropped. I 

 think they are shed from behind forward, so that the 

 front ones are lost the last. The fully developed crest 

 is a striking and beautiful ornament, hardly to be sur- 

 passed in stylishness and jaunty effect. It averages an 

 inch and a half in length, and sometimes reaches two 

 inches in the most vigorous males; in the female it is 

 rarely over an inch. The male's is a glossy jet black; 

 the female's has a brownish cast. The number of feath- 

 ers composing it is variable; five or six is usual, but 

 there may be ten. They all spring from a single point 

 on the top of the head just behind the transverse white 

 line that crosses the crown from eye to eye. The feath- 

 ers are club-shaped, enlarged at the tip and curling over 



