166 BIRDS 



tracting and inflating the large air sacs found one on each side of the 

 throat. Unlike the sage grouse, the bird is desirable as game, the meat 

 being of excellent quality. 



High in the mountains, up to the very snow line and far beyond, we 

 find a bird somewhat larger than the Eastern Bob White, yet calling 

 it to mind. Its dark-blue breast, the tints of crimson and white, the 

 four bands of white, the bluish head, and above all the two jaunty 

 slender plumes which rise like quill pens that might have been tucked 

 behind it ears, tell of the mountain quail — Oreortyx pictus — one of the 

 most artless, beautiful and characteristic game birds of California. Its 

 note is sweetly modulated, sounding like "cloi, cloi, clio," or "quit, quit, 

 quit," strangely resonant in the wild rock-bound regions of its choice. 

 I have never had the temerity to shoot the bird, as at each attempt the 

 birds in flock of ten or fifteen, instead of flying, approached me, walking 

 directly along until within forty or fifty feet, then standing and with 

 exprefesive gestures endeavoring to solve the question as to who this 

 intruder was. Their heads were extended forward in wonderment as 

 they eyed me, their plumes vibrating, and for a moment they were 

 silent; then came sweetly, "woi, woi," or "tch, tch, tch," from some- 

 where in the brush, and the pattering of feet on the dried leaves began 

 again and the mountain qauil went their way. 



Every wash and canyon, every elevated plateau along the borders of 

 the Forest Reserves is the home of the valley quail. — Lophortyx cali- 

 fornicus, — fast disappearing before the insatiate sportmen who reckons 

 numbers as the test of skill. In former years vast bands of these at- 

 tractive birds could be found all over California, affording much sport 

 and possessing a decided economic value. If the mountain qual or 

 patridge is jaunty and debonnaire, what can be said of this lover of the 

 valleys whose sweet note, "ka-loi-o," with the accent on the second syl- 

 lable, comes softly on the wind. The female is a demure little creature, 

 but the male, with its splendid attire and graceful plumes, is the type 

 of all that is attractive and beautiful among game birds. The head 

 marked with white, the back a slate blue, the swelling breast black, 

 white and cinnamon; a collar of white, the nodding plume which, 

 as the birds run, bobs up and down before their eyes like a pom-pom out 

 of place, constitute an ensemble which gives this quail a marked in- 

 dividuality among the game birds of the world. In early spring, when 

 the land is green the nest is formed beneath some bush, and when the 

 sun is high and the glory of the poppy begins to fade, and the ground 

 is carpeted with the twisted seeds of alflleria, long velvety lines of young 



