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CHESTNUT-BELLIED SCALED PARTRIDGE. 



'THIS subspecies, at times indiflferently distinguishable 

 * from the Scaled Partridge, has a very restricted 

 range, being found within our limits only in the lower 

 Rio (irande V^alley, in Texas, and across the border in 

 eastern Mexico. Among the foothills of the Rio Grande, 

 about one hundred miles from the coast, as stated by my 

 (fiend Mr. Geo. B. Sennett, is the eastern limit of this 

 bird. In its habits, selection of food, and character of 

 tbe country it dwells in, it closely resembles the Scaled 

 Partridge. Some specimens are strongly and broadly 

 marked with chestnut on the belly, this at times being 

 very dark in color; but this varies greatly, both in hue 

 and in the space it covers, until some individuals are met 

 witb tiiat are very difificult to assign to either the species 

 or the race. They grade in a large series of examples, 

 directly from one to the other, so as to make it impossible 

 to say where one form begins and the other ends. This 

 jbird raises two broods in a season and commences to lay 

 as early as March, depositing from twelve to twenty eggs 

 in a slight cavity in the ground scraped out under some 

 thick bushes or clump of grass, and lined with grass. 

 The eggs vary from a pale creamy white to a rich buflf, 

 covered all over with reddish brown spots, from the size 

 of a pin's head to a considerable blotch. There is great 

 Ivariation in both color and markings, and it is very diffi- 

 cult, if not impossible, at times to distinguish those be- 

 longing to the two forms apart. 





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