The Mountain Quails 



intervals of five or six seconds. Now and then it is repeated from a distant 

 hillside where a rival is sounding. This note is easily whistled, and a 

 little practice will enable the bird-student to join in, or else to start a 

 rivalry where all has been silent before. And quite as frequently, in 

 springtime, a sharper note is sounded, although this, I believe, is strictly 

 a mating or a questing call, queelk or queelp. This has alike a liquid and 

 a penetrating quality which defies imitation, so that the unfeathered 

 suitor is not likely to get very far in milady's affections. Thus, also, I 

 have "witnessed" the progress of courtship and its impending climax in 

 the depths of a bed of ceanothus where not a feather was visible. The 

 quilk of the preceding days had evidently taken effect. The lady was 

 there, somewhere. The mate was still quilking, but his efforts were hurried, 

 breathless. Between the major utterances, ecstatic took notes were inter- 

 jected. As the argument progressed I heard a low-pitched musical series, 

 rapidly uttered, look look look look look. (But there was no use in looking). 

 This series, employed six or eight times, was suddenly terminated by half 

 a dozen quilks in swift succession, indicative of an indescribable degree of 

 excitement. 



Not less uncanny nor less fascinating are the vocal accompaniments 

 with which a scattered covey of youngsters is coached or reassembled. 

 If the little ones are of a tender age and the need is great, the parent will 

 fling herself down at your feet and go through the familiar decoy motions; 

 but if the retreat has been more orderly, the parents clamber about, 

 instead, over the rocks and brush in wild concern. Once out of sight, 

 the old bird says querk querk querk querk, evidently an assembly call, for 

 the youngsters begin scrambling in that direction; while another old bird, 

 presumably the cock, shouts quee yawk, with an emphasis which is nothing 

 less than ludicrous. 



On such occasions the mobile crest or plume which characterizes 

 this bird is played to the utmost. The plume separates into its two com- 

 ponent feathers and is thrust forward as far as possible, so that the anterior 

 feather lies almost horizontally, while its fellow, usually a little shorter, 

 bristles at an angle of thirty degrees, and all the other feathers of the 

 crown bristle like porcupine quills. I was much interested also to see 

 half-grown chicks wearing their nascent plumes a la pompadour. 



Save in the extreme northwestern and southeastern portions of its 

 range, the Mountain Quail is to be found in summertime somewhere 

 between 2000 or 3000 and 9000 feet elevation, according to local condi- 

 tions of cover. It inhabits the pine chaparral of the lesser and coastal 

 ranges, but its preference is for mixed cover, a scattering congeries of 

 buck-brush, wild currant, service berry, Symphoricarpus, or what not, 

 with a few overshadowing oaks or pines. In the northwestern portion 



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