58 BOB WHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. 



five minutes' walk often saw a hundred birds. The same observer, 

 when in Mohave County, Ariz., found that the bird fed principally 

 on juicy plants when it could not procure water. At times it eats 

 gra^s and its inflorescence, and it has been known to devour showy 

 flowers. In spring it shows a fondness for buds. Baird, Brewer, 

 and Ridgway note that then it feeds largely on the willow buds, 

 which impart to its flesh a distinctly bitter taste." 



The seed-eating habits of Gambel quail closely resemble those of 

 the valley quail. Leguminous plants furnish the largest part of the 

 seed food — 21.17 per cent of the annual diet — alfalfa, bur clover, and 

 kindred plants appearing to be preferred, but cassias, acacias, and 

 lupines also are taken, as well as the beans of the mesquite, which in 

 many places are a staple with birds and mammals. The seeds of 

 alfilaria (Erodium cinitarivm) , another bird staple, furnish 2.28 

 per cent of the year's food. Miscellaneous seeds form 8.44 per cent. 

 They are obtained from grasses, mallows {Malra), and such crucif- 

 erous plants as mustard (Brassica) and peppergrass (Lepidium) ; 

 also from chickweed {Gerastium) and Atriplex. 



MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 



(Oreortyx piotusfi) 



The mountain quail occurs in the forested mountains of the humid 

 Transition Zone of the Pacific coast, from Santa Barbara, Cal., to 

 Washington, and in the mountains of the more arid Transition Zone 

 on the west side of the Cascades in northern Oregeon and south over 

 the Sierra Nevada to northern Lower California. The birds of the 

 Sierra Nevada winter at lower altitudes than they nest, but those of 

 the coast mountains do not make this vertical migration. This 

 species is the largest and among the handsomest of American quail, 

 with two long jet-black crest plumes and rich chestnut throat and 

 flanks, the latter broadly banded transversely with spotless white. 



The nests of the mountain quail are placed on the ground and usu- 

 ally contain 10 to 12 eggs, which vary from 23ale-cream color to a 

 much darker due. At Tillamook, Oreg., June 30 and July 4, 1897, 

 A. K. Fisher found newly hatched chicks ; and at Donner, Cal., July 

 11 and 19, at an altitude ranging from 6,100 to 8,000 feet, Vernon 

 Bailey found nine broods, varying in age from newly hatched chicks 

 to half-grown birds. Bendire, quoting L. W. Green, of the United 

 States Fish Commission, says that the earliest date of the nesting of 



" Hist N. Am. Birds, III, p. 485, 1874. 



6 Tlie name is used here' to cover both the typical dark birds of the humid coast 

 forests (Oreortyx ptctus) and the paler one (O. p. plumiferus) of the more arid 

 Transition Zone in the Sierras and Cascades. 



