Reprinted from The Condor, VoL XXIX, p. 164, May, 1927 



Valley Quail Imported from Chile. — Perhaps no other American game bird has 

 been so successfully acclimatized in other countries as has the California Valley Quail 

 (Lophortyx calif omica). For many years it has been known that this bird had been 

 successfully introduced in such remote regions as British Columbia, Chile, and New 

 Zealand, and now there has come to hand some interesting information as to the mag- 

 nitude of the success attained in one of these places. Mr. F. E. Booth, of San Fran- 

 cisco, while on a visit to Santiago, Chile, noted Valley Quail for sale in the market 

 there. On inquiry he learned that they were abundant enough to be obtained in 

 quantity, and as a consequence he has begun the importation of stock from Chile for 

 introduction into coverts on a game preserve in Sonoma County. The first shipment 

 arrived during the early part of January, 1927, consisting of 134 birds, which reached 

 their destination in good condition. Thus, depleted game coverts in California are 

 being re-stocked with Chilean-raised California Quail. 



Mr. Booth's importation of birds received newspaper publicity, and as an outcome 

 of this there resulted some information regarding the early exportation of quail from 

 California to Chile that seems worth placing upon record. The newspaper item was 

 seen by Mr. E. F. Greenwood, of San Francisco, who wrote to me, giving information 

 substantially as follows: 



"My wife, a Chilean, is a grand-daughter of one William Covers, formerly of Cali- 

 fornia and before that of Holland, who had a ranch near San Jose. He decided to 

 migrate to Chile about 1864. Being a thrifty Hollander he took many things with him, 

 including a brace of quail which he had captured on his ranch. When he arrived in 

 Chile there were no quail in that country, and his birds, exhibited in a store window, 

 were quite a novelty. He bought a ranch at Limache, near Valparaiso, and had his 

 birds there for some time. Then, while feeding them one day, their cage tipped over 

 and they escaped. This is the reason for the abundance of quail in Chile." 



A second letter, from Mr. Henry J. Besant, Sonora, California, received by one of 

 the daily papers and forwarded to me, reads thus: "I was in Chile with Mr. C. J. 

 Lambert, who had a copper mine and smelter at La Compania, near Serena, Province of 

 Coquimbo. In the park in which he had his residence at La Compania he released a 

 lot of quail which he had had sent down from San Francisco. The climate and other 

 conditions evidently being favorable, they increased in numbers rapidly and spread out 

 over the country. I cannot now remember the exact date when this was done, but I 

 think it must have been in 1881 or 1882." 



It is possible, of course, that these were not the only importations of quail into 

 Chile, but here, at any rate, is definite information as to the exact subspecies first 

 introduced there, information to be taken into account in any study of the characters 

 now exhibited by Chilean Valley Quail. — H. S. Swaeth, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 

 Berkeley, California, February 9, 1927. 



