8 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. 



and varies but little in habits. A closely related bird, the masked 

 bobwhite, inhabited southern Arizona until within a few years. 

 Owing to dry seasons and the overstocking of its home with cattle, 

 this bird is now supposed to be extinct within our borders ; but some 

 probably exist in parts of Sonora, Mexico. 



Although bobwhites are handsome birds, yet they are the plainest 

 quail in the United States- except the ' cotton top ' or scaled quail of 

 the deserts of southern Texas and Arizona. The latter is slaty 

 bluish on the upper parts, which are ornamented with large scale- 

 like markings, and has a whitish crest. 



The most bizarre and curious of all is the Mearns quail of the high, 

 broken plains and mountain slopes of southwestern Texas, southern 

 New Mexico and Arizona. It is short and round bodied, like a little 

 guinea hen, and this superficial likeness is increased by brilliant round 

 white spots ornamenting the dark sides. It is the gentlest of all 

 the quails and is so unsuspicious that when a person encounters one 

 it often walks unconcernedly about or stands looking curiously at 

 the newcomer, when it is not -infrequently killed with a stick or stone, 

 a characteristic which, among the people where it lives, has earned 

 for it the name of ' Fool Quail.' 



The Gambel quail is a habitant of the southwestern desert region, 

 where it ranges the brushy foothills and the valleys along water- 

 courses. It is a beautiful bird, the head handsomely marked and 

 adorned with a jet-black recurving crest, and the flanks bright 

 chestnut, brilliantly streaked with white. This quail, one of the 

 most conspicuous and pleasing forms of desert life, is numerous 

 wherever it can find suiEcient food and w^ter. For ages it has 

 claimed many a remote watering place as its own, but it welcomes 

 the settler and finds additional shelter and food in his irrigated 

 fields. Under the new conditions its numbers increase and it repays 

 the favors received by becoming semidomesticated. Its presence 

 adds a touch of bright color and animation to the dreary surround- 

 ings of many a lonely desert ranch. 



The California valley quail belongs entirely to the Pacific coast, 

 and probably is the most beautiful of the smaller gallinaceous birds 

 of the world. It resembles the Gambel quail in its recurving black 

 crest and general appearance, but exceeds that bird in the richness 

 of its colors and markings. It is abundant in most parts of Cali- 

 fornia. 



The California mountain quail, the largest and one of the hand- 

 somest of this group, inhabits the wooded mountains of the Pacific 

 coast, and bears a superficial resemblance to the red-legged partridge 

 of Europe. Like the Mearns quail, its haunts are usually more 

 roiiiote from cultivated lands than are those of the other species. 



The services to agriculture of the western quails, while in most 



