CALIFORNIA QUAIL. 9 
CALIFORNIA QUAIL. 
(Lophortyx californicus and vallicola.) 
The California quail (see frontispiece) is common and generally 
distributed over the State west of the Sierra, except at the higher 
altitudes, and is especially abundant in the fruit-raising sections. 
Like the bobwhite of the East, this quail never goes far from cover, 
and it delights to dwell on unimproved land where trees and chap- 
arral alternate with small areas of open ground. In settled regions 
it is somewhat domestic in habits and soon becomes accustomed to 
living in orchards, gardens, and cultivated grounds. The writer has 
seen a female. sitting upon her eggs in a garden within 30 feet of a 
house, between which and the nest carriages and foot passengers 
passed many times each day. In winter a covey frequently feeds 
with the farmer’s chickens, and if not disturbed will continue to do 
so until pairing time. 
The natural food of the quail consists of the seeds of that vast 
group of plants known as weeds, with a little foliage of the same, 
especially in winter, when the leaves are young and tender. Con- 
sidering how small is the amount of fruit usually found in the stomach 
of this bird, it is a surprise to learn that it sometimes does serious 
damage to vineyards. Investigation, however, shows that, as in 
most other similar cases, the injury results only when too many 
birds gather in a limited area. Nearly all the complaints against 
the quail for eating fruit are that it visits vineyards in immense 
numbers and eats grapes. When thousands visit a vineyard, even if 
only occasionally, and each bird eats or spoils at least. one grape, the 
result is disastrous. 
Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey, writing of the foothills of San Diego 
County, says: 
Tn 1889 quail were so numerous that the dust of the roads was printed with their 
tracks, and it was an everyday matter to have them start out of the brush and run 
ahead of the horses quite unconcernedly, pattering along in their stiff, prim way, 
with their topknots thrown forward over their beaks. In fact, the quail were so 
abundant as to be a pest. For several years great flocks of them came down the 
canyons to Major Merriam’s vineyard, where they destroyed annually from 20 to 30 
tons of fruit. In one season, July to October, 1891, 130 dozen were trapped on his 
ranch. The result of this wholesale destruction was manifest when I returned to 
the valley in 1894. The birds were then rarely seen on the roads and seldom 
flushed in riding about the valley.¢ 
Another observer states that he once saw a flock of about a thou- 
sand quail eating Zinfandel grapes in a vineyard in the central part 
of the State, and another says that in southern California he ee 
seen as many as 5,000 feeding upon Muscat grapes. In the writer's 
interviews with California fruit growers, only one mentioned the quail 
aAuk, XIII, p. 116, 1896. 
