THE GAME BREEDER 



171 



game farmers who advertise in The 

 Game Breeder are equipped to sup- 

 ply millions of pheasants and ducks 

 and eggs to the game shooting clubs and 

 the owners of country places who wish to 

 have good shooting. It is necessary to 

 send to Mexico for most of the quail for 



breeding purposes just as it was neces- 

 sary to send to England and other for- 

 eign countries a few years ago for pheas- 

 ants and ducks and their eggs. The ab- 

 surd legal situation preventing quail pro- 

 duction rapidly will vanish, already it 

 has departed from some states. 



THE MASSENA QUAIL CRYTONYX MASSENA. 



Elliot Coues. 



[The Massena Quail or Montezuma Quail of Mexico is a somewhat darker quail than simi- 

 lar birds found in the United States which have been named Mearns quail by Dr. Nelson, to 

 distinguish the sub-species. The sportsmen will do well to give the birds a trial, using Monte- 

 zumas, Massenas or Mearns, since the birds should be desirable on shoots and profitable on 

 game farms. The excellent account of the species is from The Birds of the North West, a 

 government publication, now out of print. I have never observed these birds in a wild state 

 but once I saw a good lot of them in captivity at Ronkonkoma, N. Y. I endeavored to make 

 a photograph of them but the result was a failure. — Editor.] 



I found no Massena quail about Fort 

 Whipple until a few days before my final 

 departure. A pair were then procured, 

 setting at rest the doubts I had all along 

 entertained regarding the veracity of re- 

 ports I had often received, of the occur- 

 rence there of quail different from Gam- 

 bol's. But the species must certainly be 

 rare in that region, since I could not 

 otherwise have overlooked it for so long 

 a time. 



This remarkable quail was described 

 about forty years ago by several writers, 

 nearly simultaneously. For a long 

 while it was only known as a Mexican 

 species. It remained for American nat- 

 uralists and, I may add, officers of the 

 army to show its existence in our coun- 

 try and give us something definite about 

 its habits. In Colonel McCall's observa- 

 tions upon Texan and New Mexican . 

 birds, published in the Philadelphia 

 Academy's Proceedings for 1851, we 

 find the following interesting account : 



"The species was not seen before 

 crossing the San Pedro, but it was not 

 long before it made its appearance in the 

 waste and rocky region into which we 

 then entered. And from that time until 

 we reached the Rio Pecos, a distance of 

 one hundred and forty miles (westward- 

 ly by the route we traveled), it was fre- 

 quently seen, though I should not say it 



was very common. This region is a desert 

 of great length from north to south, our 

 trail crossing it at nearly right angles. 

 The general face of the country is level, 

 and consists of either a crumbling argil- 

 laceous limestone, or a coarse, gray sand, 

 producing nothing but a sparse growth 

 of sand plants. Water is found only, at 

 long intervals, and, except at those 

 points, there is little cover for game, and 

 apparently less food — the principal 

 growth being cacti, of which the most 

 common is cactus arborescens ; yet here, 

 among projecting rocks, or on the bor- 

 ders of dry gullies or in loose scrub, I 

 found the Massena partridge in all the 

 beauty of his rich and varied plumage. 



"The habits of this species are differ- 

 ent from those of any other species of 

 partridge that I have met with. They 

 were in coveys of from eight to twelve 

 individuals, and appeared to be extreme- 

 ly simple and affectionate in disposition. 

 In feeding they separated but little, keep- 

 ing up a social 'cluck' all the time. They 

 were so gentle as to evince little or no 

 alarm on the appearance of man, scarcely 

 moving out of his way as he passed, and 

 only running off or flying a few yards, 

 when perhaps half their number were 

 laid low by a shot. This inclined me to 

 think that they might with little difficulty 

 be domesticated, near the habitation of 



