14 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



sharp whistle of but one note, and may be imitated by whistling the word 

 "querk" in middle E, and is audible for a long distance." 



Nidification commences about the middle of May, and ordinarily but one 

 brood is raised. The nest is placed on the ground, alongside or under an old 

 log, or on side hills under thick bushes and clumps of ferns, occasionally along 

 the edges of clearings, grain fields, or meadows. A nest found May 27, 1877, 

 near Coquille, Oregon, containing six fresh eggs, was well concealed under a 

 bunch of tall ferns, in a tract of timber killed by a forest fire. Another, taken 

 in Ukiah Valley, Mendocino County, California, June 2, 1883, by Mr. C. Purdy, 

 contained twelve fresh eggs. This nest was found under a bush of poison oak 

 among a lot of dry leaves on a steep hillside. The average number of eggs 

 laid by this Partridge is about ten, most of the sets containing from eight to 

 twelve. An occasional nest contains as many as sixteen, but such large sets 

 are rare. 



The eggs vary from a pale cream color to a rich creamy buff, and are 

 unspotted. In shape they are short ovate, and very much resemble unmarked 

 eggs of the Ruffed Grouse although of smaller size. They are indistinguishable 

 in shape, size, and color from the eggs of the next subspecies, and for that 

 reason none are figured. The average size of nineteen specimens in the U. S. 

 National Museum collection is 34.5 by 26 millimetres, the largest egg measuring 

 36 by 26.5, the smallest, 34 by 25 millimetres. 



7. Oreortyx pictus plumiferus (Gould). 



PLUMED PARTRIDGE. 



Ortyx plumifera Gould, Proceedings Zoological Society, 1837, 42. 

 Oreortyx pictus var. plumiferus Ridgway, in History North American Birds, in, 



1874, 476. 

 (B — , C — , R 481a, C — , U 292a.) 



< 

 Geographical range : From the west side of the Cascade Range in northern 

 Oregon (except near the coast) south, along both sides o'f the Sierra Nevada and the 

 southern coast ranges of California (south of latitude 34° only) to northern Lower 

 California. 



The Plumed Partridge, a bird as handsome as the preceding, inhabits 

 the interior mountain regions from the southern border of California north- 

 ward through middle western Oregon, as well as parts of western Nevada, 

 approaching the seacoast in the extreme southern portion of its range only. 

 It is everywhere known as the "Mountain Quail," and deserves this name far 

 more than the preceding subspecies, reaching much higher altitudes than the 

 former. On the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada it has been observed from 

 Walker's Pass, near Fort Tejon, northward. Personally, I have often met with 

 it on Mount Kearsarge, in Inyo County, California, where it reached an altitude 

 of 10,000 feet in summer. Mr. Robert Ridgway noticed this subspecies near 

 Carson City, and in the Comstock Mountains near Pyramid Lake, Nevada, 



