230 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vol. 10 



"grayer upper parts and thicker bill." We have tested the 

 material at hand as regards these two characters and are abso- 

 lutely unable to distinguish our birds from the San Jacinto 

 Mountains and elsewhere in southern California, from perfectly 

 comparable material as regards age and stage of plumage from 

 various parts of the Sierra Nevada, central as well as southern 

 The Museum's scries includes good specimens from extreme 

 southern San Diego County: Campo, Mountain Spring, Cuya- 

 maca and Volcan mountains. These, also, are in no appreciable 

 way different from plumifera. 



In other words, we see no excuse for using any name other 

 than plumifera for the mountain quail of southern California. 



Lophortyx calif ornica vallicola (Ridgway) 

 Valley Quail 



An abundant species in the San Jacinto Mountains, found 

 ;i1 all suitable points from the Lower Sonoran valleys surround- 

 ing the range, up into the lower edge of Transition. Twenty- 

 two specimens were collected, as follows: Snow Creek, three (nos. 

 2160-2162) ; Cabezon, five (nos. K;:>7-1661) ; Banning, four (nos. 

 2018-2021 i : Vallevista, three i dos. 3094-3096) ; Dos Palmos. two 

 (nos. 2491, 24112- ; and Palm Canon, five (nos. 3046-3050). Other 

 points of record are Vandeventer Flat. Kenworthy, Hemet Lake. 

 Thomas Mountain, Strawberry Valley, and Schain's Ranch. Most 

 of these localities are in LTpper Sonoran, the highest points only — 

 Strawberry Valley (6000 feet) and Thomas Mountain (6800 

 feet) — being at the lower edge of Transition. 



This quail breeds in greatest abundance on the sage-brush 

 covered floor of the upper Hemet Valley, the region from Hemet 

 Lake to Vandeventer Flat being peculiarly adapted to the species. 

 At Kenworthy. in this valley, they were numerous, and nearly 

 all in pairs at the time of our arrival, May 19. A nest was found 

 here on May 23 (no. 72), very imperfectly concealed at the base 

 of a scanty clump of sage brush. The slight depression in the 

 ground forming the nest was scantily lined with grass and weed 

 stalks; at this date it contained ten fresh eggs. A second nest, 

 containing eight eggs, was found on June 23 in the same locality, 



