690 



BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SUKVEY. 



promptly set forth and clashed oat from before me, with the lovely little 

 chicks running Out from the grass beneath. The mother watched them 

 with intense anxiety from the left, and as the cock ran off, calling them 

 to follow, she added a few more notes, quick and decided, evidently 

 remarks directed to the lagging little ones, and intended to hurry them 

 on, and then cut across behind me and joined her family, safe from 

 danger, with some haste and doubtless a great deal of satisfaction. 



During our marches, the Quail met showed little wariness and gen- 

 erally allowed us to get very near, and it was only when a horse was 

 turned aside and came directly toward or among them that the covey 

 rose and flew to cover. 



Neither the Scaled Partridge or Blue Quail (GalUpepla squamata), the 

 curiously-striped Massena Partridge {Gyrtonya massena), nor the beauti. 

 ful Arizona quail or Gambel's Partridge [Lopliortyx yaniheli), for all of 

 which Texas is a habitat, were observed in any part of the section vis- 

 ited. Gambel's Partridge, generally called by the ranchmen " Plumed 

 Quail", I observed in great numbers last Februiry at Fort Selden, N. 

 Mex., latitude 32° 25', and thence in traveling south. Returning, 

 over a mouth later, I did not observe any north of that point. Imme- 

 diately above Selden, at whose edge it lies, stretches to the north the 

 Jornado del Muerto (Journey of Death), a great treeless desert of ninety 

 miles, without water save that to be purchased at a well sunk midway 

 upon the line of travel; bordered on its western side by two steep vol- 

 canic mountain-ranges, Sierra del Oaballo and Sierra Fra Cristobal, the 

 two the same range but for a narrow gorge or caiion between, an effect- 

 ual barrier along the Rio Grande, preventing a road by its inaccessible 

 banks; upon the east extends a like range, the S m Andres Mountains, 

 continued under the name of Sierra Soledad, the whole a long, level 

 plain, shut in by two great impassable rocky walls, relieved only by a 

 sight of the Rio Grande at Paraje — well named in olden time " The 

 Rest"— latitude 33° 33', on its northern limit. No more effectual ob- 

 struction to the migration of these birds could be presented. In extreme 

 Eastern New Mexico, however, the valley of the Pecos may render their 

 migration north not only possible, but very probable. 



Nestsof eggs freshly laid were found May ISalong McClellan Creek, etc. 



CHARADRIID^. 



Charadrius fulvus virginicus, (Borck.) Coues. — Golden Plover. 

 Whilst abundant in March along the Upper Rio Grande region of 



