438 PLUMED QUAIL — LOPHOETYX GAMBELT. 



Tbcy must prepare for new duties. With deep sense of responsibility 

 and earnest solicitude, the pair now cast about for a suitable spot for 

 their home. They search through the tall, rank herbage alongside the 

 stream, through the willow- copses, among fallen moss-covered logs that 

 are scattered around the glen, and at length make up their minds. 

 Little more is needed than to fix upon the spot, for the nest is a simple 

 affair, the work of a few hours perhaps, scratching a suitable depression 

 and lining it with a few dried grasses pressed together. Day by day 

 eggs are laid, till a dozen or more fill the nest. They cannot be distin- 

 guished from those of the California Quail. They measure an inch and 

 a quarter in length by an inch in breadth, and are almost pyramidal in 

 shape, the larger end flattish and very broad, the other narrow and 

 poijited. The color is a buff or rich creamy, dotted and spotted all over 

 with bright brown, and splashed here and there with large blotches of 

 the same. When the female is not pressed to lay, the pair ramble about 

 together, in close company, until the complement is finished. Then she 

 gives up all recreation, grown already quite sober and maternal, and 

 resolutely sets about her long tour of duty. But she is not forgotten 

 because she can no longer share the idle pleasures of her lord. Mounted 

 on a stump or bush near by, he stands watch, and continually solaces 

 her with the best music he can make. It is not very harmonious, to be 

 sure ; in fact his ditty at such times is a medley of odd notes, sounding 

 rather lugubrious than hilarious, but it is presumably satisfactory to 

 the one most concerned. So the long days pass for two weeks or more, 

 till feeble cries come from the nest; the mother dries and cuddles 

 the curious little things, and the delighted birds, brimful of joy, lead 

 their family off in search of food. 



From the number of eggs sometimes found in a nest, it becomes a 

 question whether birds, hard pressed, may not occasionally deposit in 

 nests not their own. We have no positive evidence that it may 

 occur, but observation has rendered it highly probable that such is the 

 case with some other birds, as the Rails, and, I think, the Virginia 

 Quail. However this may be, it is pretty certain that broods of young 

 sometimes coalesce, at a varying time after hatching. 1 do not remem- 

 ber to have myself seen a covey of more than twenty; but it is ciu'- 

 rently reported, upon good authority, that troops numbering as many 

 as fifty partly-grown birds, and including several old ones, may be met 

 with. This raises, of course, the question of polygamy, so common in 

 birds of this order; and something may be said in favor of the view. 

 The same surmise has been made in the case of L. californieus, but I 

 believe it remains to be proven. I am bound to observe, that I have 

 never witnessed anything supporting this view ; had I done so, what 

 has just gone before would not have been written. 



In an article communicated some years since to the " Ibis," I used the 

 following language, which I have since found no reason to modify : 



"Compared with the Eastern Quail (0. virginiantis), from the sports- 

 man's stand-point, Gambel's Plumed Quail is more difficult to kill. Not 

 that it rises with more startling suddenness, or flies faster, for I noticed 

 no material difference in these respects. But when a bevy is flushed 

 and one, or at most two, birds secured, it is exceedingly difficult, and 

 usually only by chance, that other .shots are obtained. For, except under 

 certain circumstances, they lie very badly ; and when tliey drop, after 

 being for the first time started, it is usually not to squat and remain bid, 

 but to run as fast and far as possible ; so that if found at all, it will be 

 dozens of yards from where they were marked down. This propensity 

 to run, which is also a great obstacle to their being flushed within proper 



