The Desert Quail 



plain ochraceous buffy; upper belly, broadly, black (where calif ornica is chestnut); 

 lower belly, etc., dull ochraceous buffy, unmarked centrally, on flanks and crissum 

 striped with dull chestnut or brownish dusky. Adult female: In general, color tone 

 strikingly similar to female L. californica vallicola, but in complete suppression of 

 cervical white markings and abdominal scale-like bordering, following closely the pat- 

 tern of its own male; no black anywhere; tendency to dark shaft-lines further developed, 

 especially on breast; sides as in male, but bay somewhat restricted. Immature and 

 chick: Pattern much as in foregoing form, but tone lighter, grayer, with less brown. 

 Measurements (average of 5 males and 5 females): length 249.8 (9.83); wing no. 1 

 (4.34); tail 90.2 (3-55); bill 10.6 (.42); tarsus 31.7 (1.25). 



Recognition Marks. — Robin size; recurved crest and black throat (of male 

 only) much as in Valley Quail; underparts not scaled; bright chestnut of crown in male 

 and dark chestnut sides striped, with white, distinctive. 



Nesting. — Nest: A depression in ground lined with grass or leaves; or occasion- 

 ally placed on top of a stump or low horizontal limb; or else eggs deposited in elevated 

 nest of other bird. Eggs: 8 to 22; short ovate, pale ivory-yellow, cream-color, or 

 cream-buff, spotted and blotched irregularly with golden brown or purplish brown 

 (dresden brown or Hay's brown to light seal-brown and aniline black). Av. size 31.2 

 x 24.1 (1.23 x .95); index 77.2. A set of 15 eggs taken near Tucson, Ariz., by F. C. 

 YVillard, May 24, 1913, shows the following extremes: 36.5 x 25.6 (1.44 x 1.01), and 23.6 

 x 19.5 (.93 x .77). The largest egg is thus 2^f times the bulk of the smallest. Between 

 these extremes there is a perfect gradation, there being in this set literally no two eggs 

 alike. Season: May-June. 



General Range. — Common resident in Lower Sonoran zone of the South- 

 western States and northern Mexico, from the desert divide in southern California and 

 northeastern Lower California east to the El Paso region of western Texas north to 

 southern Nevada, southern Utah, and southwestern Colorado, and south to Guaymas, 

 Sonora. 



Distribution in California. — Abundant resident locally, chiefly in the vicinity 

 of streams or springs, on the southeastern deserts; west to Hesperia and Banning; north 

 to Amargosa and Death Valleys. 



Authorities. — Baird (Callipepla gambeli), in Stansbury's Expl. Great Salt Lake, 

 t853i P- 334 (California); Coues, Birds of the Northwest, 1874, p. 432 (habits, molt, 

 food, etc.) ; Thurber, Auk, vol. xiii., 1896, p. 265 (hybrids between gambeli and vallicola) ; 

 Grinnell and Swarth, Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., vol. x., 1913, p. 230 (San Jacinto Mts., 

 habits, occurrence, etc.). 



THE AMAZING fecundity of the desert is nowhere more clearly 

 illustrated than in the case of this humble quail. To be sure, the species 

 is nearly confined to the presence of water, which it must visit night and 

 morning; but wherever at lower levels springs or water courses are to 

 be found in Arizona and the adjoining states, there gambeli abounds. 

 The Desert Quail loves cover — arrow weed, atriplex, mesquite — and 

 though the birds will momentarily alight in bushes, when flushed they 

 almost immediately drop to the ground and go scuttling off under cover. 

 Pursuit is difficult where fear has once given them legs; and the adroit- 

 ness with which a flock, all but unseen, will melt away and scatter un- 

 harmed before the alert gunner, is nothing less than uncanny. 



1587 



