PEDIOECETES PHASIANELLUS VAE. COLXJMBIANUS. 411 



main cause of tbe change — what the Pinnated likes best being not to 

 the taste of the other. Jnst as the Quail is a " home bird," loving the 

 stubble-field and hay-rick near the owner's house, so the Pinnated pre- 

 fers to glean over cultivated fields, while the wilder Sharp-tailed clings 

 to its native heath. The railroad will take the former along and warn 

 away the latter. 



Proceeding now nearly due south, we find the line of distribution 

 (however it may lead to the right or left, according to the nature of 

 special locality) gives over the greater portion of Nebraska to this 

 species, and i^asses nearly through the middle of Kansas to the vicinity 

 of Fort Hays, where the bird was found by Mr. Allen. This is the 

 easternmost point in this latitude that I have ascertained, and may 

 represent the southernmost limit of distribution, or nearly so — about 

 38°. Prom the line above sketched the species reaches across the 

 entire country, in suitable regions, to the east side of the Sierra Nevada 

 of California, and of the continuation of the same range into Oregon 

 and Washington — the Cascades. It does not, apparently, cross this 

 range into the valleys on the west side; nor has it been found in 

 California quite so far south as in Kansas and Colorado — not quite to 

 latitude 40°. In fact it has only lately been included in the fauna of 

 that State. Dr. Newberry saw it about fifty miles northeast of Port 

 Beading, near Canoe Creek, on the prairie near Pitt Eiver, about the 

 Klamath Lakes, and in the Des Chutes basin to the Dalles. In Wash- 

 ington Territory Dr. Cooper says it is found only in the low alluvial 

 prairies of the streams emptying into the Columbia east of the Cascade 

 Mountains ; but this restriction probably requires to be removed. He 

 mentions an interesting fact in contrast of the present bird and the 

 Blue Grouse {Tetrao obsGiirus): "They shun high grounds and forests 

 entirely; and within a distance of half a mile I have seen both these 

 and the Blue Grouse (which avoids open plains altogether) as I passed 

 from prairie to forest." Dr. Suckley noticed the " exceeding abundance" 

 of the species from the mouth of the Yellowstone to the Cascades, 

 wherever there is open country and a sufficiency of food. The bird is 

 probably nowhere more numerous than in the regions where I have had 

 opportunity of studying it, namely, in th« vicinity of Fort Eandall on 

 the Missouri, from October to May ; at Fort Pembina, on the Eed Eiver, 

 in June, and at various points along the Souris or Mouse Eiver, Dakota, 

 during the rest of the year. 



We may begin with the egg, and will take it a little earlier in its 

 history than usual. High up the oviduct, when the shell first forms, it 

 is of a uniform pale, dnll green color. The first one I ever saw was of 

 this description; it was brought to me as having been "cut out of a 

 Prairie Chicken," which I could scarely credit, though I could not help 

 believing my informant ; and as the egg had been boiled, I set it down 

 to this having somehow changed the color. Soon after, however, I 

 killed a hen off her nest, and found in her a duplicate of the first 

 specimen. As the egg passes down it acquires a deposit of brown pig- 

 ment, which, mingled with the green, or overlying it, produces the 

 characteristic olive or drab tint of the mature egg. When this brown 

 is in less quantity, a pale, dull drab, nearly uniform, results ; when in 

 excess, the tint is a darker olive, and in most specimens, further deposit 

 of brown, not fairly mixed with the original green, produces a minutely 

 dotted egg, the dark brown being picked into the shell, as it were, in 

 points. These markings are rarely, if ever, aggregated into spots of 

 any considerable size (any larger than a pin's head), and are uniformly 

 distributed; at least I have seen no specimens otherwise marked. 



