184 



THE DESERT 



TJie vicious 

 beak. 



The desert 

 quail. 



Wings of 

 the quaU, 



ried a little to the right or the left and gives 

 this impression. When frightened, his top-knot 

 is raised like that of the pheasant, and he often 

 runs with his beak open. It is a most vicious 

 beak for all that it looks not more blood-thirsty 

 than that of the crow. It snaps through a 

 scorpion or a centipede like a pair of sheep- 

 shearers. And with all his energy and strength 

 the road-runner weighs only about a pound. 

 He is a long-geared bird, but not actually any 

 larger than a pigeon. 



The blue valley-quail — whether of Arizona or 

 California breeding — is quite as strong of leg as 

 the road-runner, though not perhaps so swift. 

 He does not care much about using his wings ; 

 and at best they are not better than the rather 

 poor average of quails' wings. By that I mean 

 that all quails rise from cover with a great roar 

 and bustle, and they fly very fast for a short 

 distance ; but they are soon down upon the 

 ground, running and hiding. The flight of the 

 quail, too, is straight ahead. It is not possible 

 for him to rise up over five hundred feet of 

 canyon wall, for instance, and even on an ordi- 

 nary mountain side he takes several flights be- 

 fore he reaches the summit. The wings are 

 not muscled like the legs, and that is because 



