The Valley Quails 



No. 313b Catalina Island Quail 



A. O. U. (unrecognized). Lophortyx calif ornica catalinensis Grinnell. 



Description. — "Similar to L. c. vallicola but about 9 % larger throughout, 

 and coloration somewhat darker; similar to L. c. californica, but larger and much less 

 deeply brownish dorsally" (Grinnell). 



Status. — A dubitative form whose recognition involves the supreme exercise of 

 the critical faculty. An independent comparison between five examples from Santa 

 Catalina and ten selected specimens from the mainland sustains the claim of a slightly 

 greater wing length for catalinensis, a more robust bill (about equal to maxima of 

 L. c. vallicola) and especially robust feet and legs, which exceed the maximum average of 

 vallicola by a millimeter or so. 



Range. — Resident on Santa Catalina Island, Los Angeles County. 



Authorities. — Grinnell (Lophortyx catalinensis), Auk, vol. xxiii., 1902, p. 262 

 (orig. desc. ; type locality, Avalon, Catalina Id.); Howell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 12, 

 1917, p. 52 (Catalina Id.; crit.). 



GET RIGHT UP. Get right' up. Get right' up. Is it the voice of 

 conscience? or is it some patent new-fangled Calif ornian alarm clock 

 which thus admonishes us? It is an unearthly hour — not sunrise yet — 

 What! a bird, you say? How interesting! It is a. beautiful morning. 

 There is the pungent smell of things newly rained on in the air, and a 

 faint mist, like a host of ministering fairies, hovers over the budding 

 roses. Perhaps the bird is right. Let's get up! 



Glad summoner of springtime! Gallant pensioner of our lawns and 

 hedges! Brave elf o' the nodding plume! Is there a heart in California 

 that loves you not? Or an ear that does not thrill anew when it hears 

 your sturdy call? What can we do to repay the kindness of your daily 

 cheer? What less, indeed, than to give you the freedom of our premises, 

 to let you glean for us a thousand seeded evils, and to let you parade, un- 

 coveted, your saucy beauty? Stay, beautiful bird, and trust us, us 

 whose tongues have never tasted your brothers' blood; us who would as 

 soon frighten children as to violate your confidence. Woe is us that you 

 must scuttle to the nearest cover and deliberate in anxious accents whether 

 to fly or no. Woe ! I say, and a plague upon the cause that brought you 

 to this pass. 



There! that is a very bad beginning for an account of "California's 

 leading game bird." For ten years the author of "The Birds of Cali- 

 fornia" has faced the task of expounding to his "fellow sportsmen" the 

 glories of quail-shooting. Duty is written large in the expectation of a 

 hundred thousand owners of guns. "Come," they say, "glorify for us 

 the ardors of the chase, the rustle of expectation, the sudden hurtling of 

 winged rockets, the quick eye and the accurate finger that stops the hurt- 

 ling mid-sky, and the limp form retrieved from the sheltering bushes, the 



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