QUAITS. 209 
can be obtained. If unmolested, the birds are said by 
the Mexicans to attain to an age of from fifteen to 
eighteen years, as proved by individuals brought up in 
confinement from their downy stage, although fifteen 
years is supposed to represent the average life of the Per- 
dicide, according to the computation of Pallas. Their 
movements are very rapid in captivity, and they ex- 
hibit unusual suspicion, alertness, and timidity. The 
Mexican naturalist, Don Pablo de la Llave, says he re- 
peatedly attempted to rear the blue colin in cages, but 
that, though he fed them himself, and constantly minis- 
tered to their wants, he could not accustom them to his 
presence, and that they appeared to become more wild, 
intractable, and suspicious day by day, and when the 
experiment was persisted in, that they finally pined 
away and died of a disorder closely simulating nostalgia. 
While colins may be met with occasionally on rocky 
ground, it is probable that they frequent such regions 
only when they afford sustenance to mesquite bushes, as 
they seem especially partial to the presence of this form 
of vegetation. The plains and grassy mesas are preferred 
to rocks and hills. They are found on all plains 
where parpalum and mesquite grasses grow, and amongst 
the groves of acacia, prosopis, nispalos, and mesquite. 
They are, it is said, very partial, in the more northern 
regions of their habitat, to the so-called prairie dog towns, 
though these usually embrace large tracts destitute of 
vegetation. For lack of a better cause to which to as- 
sign this strange preference, the birds are supposed to be 
drawn thither by the abundance of favorite insect food. 
They are also at times, and particularly toward the 
close of summer or early autumn, found to cover large 
tracts destitute of all forms of vegetable life, especially 
open, sandy plains, though these, usually, are not far 
removed from either grass or water. They are probably 
capable of existing for considerable periods of time 
