18 LIFE HISTORIES OF JSTORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 



g. Callipepla squamata (Vigors). 



SCALED PARTRIDGE. 



Ortyx squamatus Vigors, Zoological Journal, v, 1830, 275. 

 Callipepla squamata GtEAY, Genera of Birds, iii, 1846, 514. 



(B 476, C 393, R 484, C 577, U 293.) 



Geographical range: Northern Mexico and contiguous border of United States, 

 from western Texas, through New Mexico, to southern Arizona. 



The Scaled Partridge, usually called the Blue Quail and also the White 

 Top-knot Quail, is a constant resident of southwestern Texas from about lati- 

 tude 28'^ northward along the valley of the Rio Grande, as well as of a 

 considerable portion of New Mexico and southern Arizona, extending south 

 into Mexico. Specimens have been taken as far north as Chico Springs, Col- 

 fax County, New Mexico, where Mr. Thurlow Washburne reports them as 

 fairly common in rocky places wherever water is found. Bonham, Fannin 

 County, Texas, is the most eastern point at which it has been noted, and in 

 Arizona the mountains in the vicinity of the Colorado River probably mark its 

 western boundary. It has been traced at least 90 miles west by southwest 

 from Tucson to Wood's Station, and probably extends still further west in this 

 direction. It does not appear to occur north and east of the White and Mogol- 

 lon Mountains. They are very common in some portions of southern Arizona. 

 Mr. Herbert Brown writes me from Tucson as follows: "I have seen this bird, 

 both far away from, and in tlie immediate vicinity of, water, on the open valleys 

 and plains, and also in the rough foothills of the mountains. In the Altar 

 Valley, west and southwest of Tucson, I have seen large numbers of them, but 

 as the foothills of the mountains are approached they give way to Cambel's 

 Quail entirely. They are also at all times very numerous in the Sierritas about 

 50 miles south of Tucson, as well as west of the Catalina Mountains." 



According to my own observations the Scaled Partridge is found most 

 abundantly on the high plateaus bordering on the principal streams of the 

 regions under consideration, reaching an altitude of from 1,500 to nearly 7,000 

 feet. It shuns timbered country, and in southern Arizona, where I have fre- 

 quently met Avith these birds, they seemed to me to prefer the most barren and 

 driest portions of that scantily watered Territory. I invariably found them 

 back in the foothills and mesas, from 2 to 5 miles distant from the river beds, 

 which are generally dry for the greater part of the year. 



Tliese barren and rocky foothills and table lands are covered in places 

 with a dry, harsh vegetation, consisting of diiferent species of cacti, stunted 

 yuccas, catclaw-mimosa, creosote, and dwarf sage bushes, where the soil is so 

 parched that scarcely anything else will flourish, and where nearly every shrub 

 is covered with sharp spines or thorns; such places I found to be the favorite 

 home of the Scaled Partridge. Many times have I seen coveys miles from 

 water, and it appeared to me that, judging from the kind of country it inhab- 



