THE QUAIL AND THE GROUSE 

 OF THE PACIFIC COAST 



THE VALLEY-QUAIL OF CALIFORNIA 



On the Pacific Coast are three varieties of the 

 blue or crested quail, of which the most numer- 

 ous is the valley-quail, so called from its gathering 

 in the fall in great bands of hundreds, and even 

 thousands, which, before they were much hunted, 

 spent most of the time in the valleys instead of in 

 the hills where they were hatched. But it lives 

 everywhere from coast to mountain top, except in 

 the higher ranges, where it disappears toward five 

 thousand feet above the sea. From 1875 to 1885 

 I lived where these birds were in sight or sound, 

 morning, noon, and night, the whole year round, 

 and never saw any evidence of their raising a 

 second brood in a season. An occasional late 

 brood is doubtless due to the destruction of the 

 first nest. It roosts in terrific cactus, into which 

 it flies at full speed, or in trees out of which it 

 goes at dawn like a charge of grape-shot, and as 

 it loses no eggs by wet weather and suffers none 

 from winter freezing, its natural enemies cannot 



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