34 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA No. 9 



vines have not attained sufficient growth to be of much value for concealment, 

 and probably the birds prefer to wait until such a time before preparing nests in 

 which to deposit their eggs. 



Besides concealing their nests under vines quail sometimes choose grain 

 fields, alfalfa-grown lowlands, and weeds along ditches, as places in which to 

 hatch their young. Occasionally strange sites are selected, and one pair was 

 found that had sixteen eggs neatly hidden in a pocket in the side of a haystack ; 

 another nest was found concealed under a clod in a field. They are 

 even said to nest, at times, on a bunch of leaves or an old jay's nest in a willow, 

 sometimes at a considerable elevation. The nesting period is from early May 

 through July. Although no little time is occupied in depositing the large num- 

 ber of eggs, yet the actual work of preparing the nest is probably of small mo- 

 ment, as a slight hollow scratched in the ground seems sufficient. Often this 

 hollow is lined with dry grass, leaves, or feathers, but sometimes only a few 

 straws are used ; in such cases eggs may be partly buried in the soft dry earth. 



The smallest number of eggs that I have ever observed in a nest was a set 

 of ten ; but as the nest was found in late July it was no doubt a second set. One 

 nest was found on May i6, 1902, with twenty-two eggs, and another on June 2, 

 1907, with twenty-one. Sets of from fifteen to seventeen are most common. 



I am not yet willing to agree that all large sets of quail eggs are the result 

 of two females using the same nest ; but in one instance that came under my ob- 

 servation this must have been the case. April 19, 1907, a nest was found just 

 before noon with four eggs, and while passing the place late in the afternoon I 

 looked into the nest and found six eggs. After that the set increased only one 

 eg^ each day, but the two eggs appearing in the afternoon rather upset a theory 

 I had held as to quail always depositing their eggs early in the morning. So far 

 as I have been able to learn, the period of incubation is, approximately, twenty- 

 one days. 



The manner in which a dozen or more young quail can disappear before the 

 very eyes of an observer seems almost uncanny, and it requires no little searching 

 to discover one of the little fellows hidden under a dead leaf or tuft of grass. 



Many a dull, foggy, winter morning is made more cheerful by the call of this 

 bird as a little flock runs through the vineyards, their feet pattering over the 

 leaves like raindrops. In the twilight of a summer evening the same call floats 

 cheerily up to us from the alfalfa field, just as the birds whirr away to their roo.st 

 in the tall blue-gnms near the barnyard. 



Band-tailed Pigeon. Columba fasciata fasciata Say. 



This is another bird of the mountains, that comes to us only at long inter- 

 vals and then always in winter. Hunters inform me that these pigeons were very 

 numerous in the valley all of one winter in the late nineties. One man tells me 

 that they fed in large flocks on barley fields near Riverdale, and that they showed 

 no great fear, always returning in a short time to the same field, even after being 

 shot at persistently. When too frequently disturbed they often perched for a 

 short time in some tall leafless willows, to fly again to the fields where they fed. 

 This same hunter kept one wing-tipped bird in captivity for several weeks. 



