MASKED BOB WHITE. 



'T^HIS singularly colored Quail is unlike any other 

 species inhabiting America north of Mexico. It is 

 found in southern Arizona, Sonora, and Mexico, espe- 

 cially in the district lying between the gulf coast of 

 Sonora and the Barboquivari range, and is abundant 

 between the last-named mountains and the Plomoso. 

 Mr. Herbert Brown of Tucson, Arizona, was the first 

 to obtain this bird within the limits of the United States, 

 and he says that it is found on the Sonoita Creek, about 

 sixty miles north of the Sonora line, and from the 

 Sonoita Valley it ranges in a westerly direction within 

 Arizona Territory for a hundred miles through a strip 

 of country not thirty miles wide. In a wild state this 

 Quail does not appear to be nearly so abundant in the 

 country it inhabits (at least on our side of the line), as 

 are the other species of quail that are indigenous to our 

 soil and inhabitants of the same States. The Masked 

 Quail found in Arizona are apparently but an overflow 

 across our border from the main body of birds in Sonora. 

 They are met with in the valley, on the table-lands, 

 and even as high as 6000 feet, two having been killed 

 at that elevation in the Huachuca Mountains, in a canon 

 about fifteen miles north of the border ; but nowhere can 

 they be considered abundant. 



Although so totally different in appearance from our 

 common Bob White, the Masked Quail has a call note 

 which resembles exactly that of the Northern species and, 

 while uttering this, it perches on rocks, bushes, or other 



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