BeC. 2, 1905.1 
FOREST AND STREAM 
4B1 
growth of “mountain misery” eight to ten inches high. 
On Mount Tallac and the higher slopes of Pyramid Peak' 
W. W. Price found newly-hatched young as late as Aug. 
15. He noted that by Sept, i the quail became restless 
and soon began their peculiar migration from the east 
slope to the west slope of the Sierras. From four to six 
adults with their young form a small band of from ten to 
thirty individuals, and pursue their way almost wholly 
on foot to a more congenial winter climate; and by Oct. 
I all had abandoned elevations above 5,000 feet. In spring 
they migrate back singly or in pairs. 
There are many admirers of this bird because of its 
exquisite plumage, but most sportsmen prefer a game bird 
■ that lies better to the dog. Its flesh is excellent, and the 
bird sells well in the market. H. W. Plenshaw reports 
that in the late fall of 1880 he found the markets of Port- 
land, Oreg., well supplied with live mountain quails which 
had been trapped in the neighboring mountains, cooped, 
and sent to the city for sale. Nowhere is it so numerous 
as the California quail, or the bobwhite in the Southern 
States, and it is more of a forest-loving species than any 
other American quail. The mountain quail sometimes 
enters cleared fields, but so far as the records of the 
Biological Survey show it does no appreciable damage to 
cultivated' fruits or other crops and it is a useful de- 
stroyer of weed seeds. 
FOOD H.-VBITS. 
No stomachs of the mountain quail of the humid re- 
gions were available for examination, but Sandys writes 
that the bird feeds on insects and various seeds, includ- 
ing grain, and Elliot says it sometimes approaches farm 
buildings in search of scattered kernels of grain. 
The food of the mountain quail of the arid regions has 
been studied in the laboratory of the Biological Survey. 
The stomachs examined, twenty-three in number, were 
collected in California. Five were collected in January, 
two in M^y, six in June, three in Jul3q three in August, 
and six in November. The food consisted of animal 
matter, three per cent., and vegetable matter, 97 per cent. 
The animal food was made up of grasshoppers, 0.05 per 
cent.; beetles, 0.23 per cent.; miscellaneous insects, in- 
cluding ants and lepidopterous pupae, 1,90 per cent.; and 
centipedes and harvest spiders, 0.82 per cent. Among the 
beetles was a species of the firefly family, a ground beetle 
and a leaf beetle. Vernon Bailey informs the writer that 
the young eat many ants. The vegetable food consisted 
of grain, 18.20 per cent.; seeds, practically all of weeds 
or other worthless plants, 46.61 per cent.; fruit, 8.11 per 
cent. ; and miscellaneous vegetable matter, 24.08 per cent. 
The grain included wheat, corn, barley and oats. Of the 
seed element the seeds of grasses formed 7.78 per cent. ; 
of legumes, ' 10.41 per cent. ; of weeds of the family 
Euphorbiacece, 3.16 per cent.; of alfilaria (Erodium cicu- 
tarium ) , 2.76 per cent., and of miscellaneous weeds, 22.50 
per cent. The legume seeds include seeds of alfalfa, 
cassia, bush clover, vetch and lupine. The miscellaneous 
seeds come from wild carrot, tar weed, labiate plants, 
dwarf oak, 'snowbush and thistle. 
Concerning the feeding habits of mountain quail of the 
dry country J. E. McClellan says : “Their feeding hours 
are early in the morning and just before sundown in the 
evening, when they go to roost in the thick tops of the 
scrub live oaks. Their feeding habits are similar to those 
of the domestic hen. They are vigorous scratchers, and 
will jump a foot or more from the ground to nip off 
leaves.” This bird is e.specially fond of the leaves of 
clover and other leguminous plants. It feeds also on flow- 
ers, being known to select those of composite and blue- 
eyed grass. Flowers, leaves, buds and other kinds of 
vegetable matter form the 24.08 per cent, marked miscel- 
laneous. The birds probably eat more fruit than these 
stomach examinations indicate. Lyman Belding says that 
this quail feeds on service berries, and that during cer- 
tain seasons it lives almost entirely on grass bulbs, which 
it gets by scratching, for which its large, powerful feet 
are well adapted. The fruit in its bill of fare includes 
gooseberries, service berries and grapes. The bird is 
probably fond also of manzanita berries, for it is often 
seen among these shrubs. 
Scaled Qaatl (Callipepla squamata.)^ 
The “cotton top,” or scaled quail, as it is commonly 
known, is bluish-gray on the back, with black-edged 
feathers on the under parts, which appear like large 
scales. Its conspicuous white-tipped crest has given it 
the local name of cotton top. It is found in southern 
Colorado and in the Upper and Lower Sonoran zones 
from Arizona to western and southern Texas and south 
to the Valley of Mexico. The birds of the lower Rio 
Grande region are darker than those farther west. Ac- 
cording to Bendire, this quail lives on open arid plains 
overgrown with yucca, cactus and sagejarush, and often 
gathers in coveys numbering twenty-five to eighty. It 
lays about a dozen eggs, and he believes that two or three 
broods are reared in a season. The cock assists in the 
care of the young, but not in incubation. 
FOOD HABITS. 
The food habits of this game bird are of especial in- 
terest. Stomachs and crops of forty-seven specimens 
have been examined, most of which came from New 
Mexico, the others from Arizona and Texas. They were 
collected as follows: January, seven; May, one; June, 
two; Julj", three; September, thirteen; October, nineteen, 
and November, two. As with all other gallinaceous 
birds, more or less , mineral matter is swallowed, usually 
small pieces of quartz. The food consisted of animal 
matter, 29.6 per cent., and vegetable matter, 70.4 per cent. 
The food of the cotton top differs from that of all 
other American quails in that it contains a large propor- 
tion of insects. These comprise no less than 29.03 per 
cent, of its food, a percentage almost twice as great as 
that of the bobwhite, although if more stomachs of the 
present species had been available for examination the 
ratio might have been different. However, the important 
fact is established that this bird is a large consumer of 
insects, instead of being, like most other western quail, 
practically graminivorous. Of the insect food, grass- 
hoppers comprise 15.86 per cent.; beetles, 10.43 per cent, 
and miscellaneous insects, largely ants, 3.27 per cent. A 
tThe name of the species is used here to include both the 
typical scaled qUail {Callipepla squamata) and the more restricted 
chestnut-bellied quail of southern Texas (C, s, castanogastris). 
few spiders also are taken, but they constitute only 0.03 
per cent, of the food for the year. The beetles are in the 
larval as well as the adult forms. The family of ground 
beetles, a favorite one with terrestrial birds, is well repre- 
sented. A single beetle with a feather-lik antenna, of the 
family Pyrochroidee, had been _ eaten. Some longicorn 
beetles and plant-eating scarabasid beetles also were eaten, 
A bird collected in June had consumed forty- four of the 
latter beetles, which’ were leaf-chafers, apparently closely 
related to the genus Serica. The scaled quail destroys 
also weevils, such as the clover weevil, Sitones, and cer- 
tain species of the family Otiorhynchidee, or scarred 
snout beetles. It takes also leaf beetles, the very injuri- 
ous twelve-spotted cucumber beetle. Further studies of 
tlie beetle food undoubtedly will disclose a large number 
of pests. The bird rvill probably be found to be a useful 
consumer also of grasshoppers, since a third of its Sep- 
tember food consisted of them. Their remains were so 
fragmentary, however, that identification of species was 
unsatisfactory. In one case a member of the genus 
Trimcrof.ro pis was recognized. Ants had been eaten by 
fifteen of the forty-seven birds examined. The other mis- 
cellaneous insects included small bugs and the chrysalis 
of a fly. One of the queerest objects found by the writer 
in birds’ stomachs is the “ground pearl,” several hundred 
of which were contained in the stomach of a cotton top 
shot at Roswell, N. Mex., June 17, 1899. They are lus- 
trous and look like pearls, but are merely scale insects 
that feed on the roots of plants. 
Vegetable matter furnished seventy per cent, of the 
food of the scaled quail. Grain contributed 0.57 per cent. ; 
seeds, mostly weed seeds, 52.85 per cent.; fruit, 12.65 per 
cent., and leaves and other green tissue 4.33 per cent. 
The species resembles the ruffed grouse in its habit of 
feeding on green leaves and tender shoots. It feeds upon 
budded twigs, but more often limits its choice to chloro- 
phyll-bearing tissue, often picking green seed pods of 
various pLants. Like domestic fowls, it eats grass blades. 
Fruit was eaten by only six of the forty-seven birds, and 
none was taken from cultivated varieties. As might be 
expected from inhabitants of arid plains, these birds like 
the fruit of cacti, and_ have been found feeding on the 
prickly pear. The blue berries of Adelia cmgustifolia, 
which furnish many desert birds and mammals with 
food, are often eaten by the scaled quail. Different kinds 
of Rubus fruits are relished, and the berries of Koeher- 
linia spinosa and Momisia pallida also' are eaten. The 
fruit and succulent parts of plants no doubt serve in part 
in the parched desert as a substitute for water. 
Seeds of various plants form a little more than half of 
the food. Legumes furnish 21.84 per cent., the mesquite, 
a staple with both man and beast, being utilized, as are 
the seeds of mimosa, besides various cassias and lupines, 
Seeds of vetch are a favorite food. The bird at times 
vdll eat clover seeds. . Miscellaneous weed seeds yield 
31.01 per cent, of the annual food. Nearly half of these 
are seeds of bindweed, an abundant and troublesome 
weed in the South, where it often throttles other plants. 
The following miscellaneous seeds were found among 
their food : Thistle, wild sunflower, coreopsis, aster, 
chamomile, pigweed, gromwell, borage, mallow, turkey 
mullein, croton, alfilaria and spurge. Grass seeds have 
not yet been found in quantity in the crop of the species, 
but panicum seeds have been recognized. 
In summing up the economic status of the scaled quail 
it should be noted that although the bird is a desert 
species, it comes into more or less direct relation with 
agriculture, sometimes feeding upon cultivated land and 
about farm buildings. ■ Moreover, half of its food con- 
sists of the seeds of weeds. Lastly, it is highly insectivor- 
ous, fully one-fourth of its food consisting of insects. 
Mearns Quail (Cyrtonyx montesum-ce ■mearnsi.)t 
The pervading colors of the male Mearns quail are 
black, white and chestnut. Its thick speckles of white 
and its peculiar shape suggest a miniature guinea hen. 
The species is found on the table-lands of Mexico' from 
the City of Mexico north to western Texas, New Mexico 
and Arizona, but the bird considered here is limited to 
the northern part of this range. 
It is a, confiding bird, and either from excess of curi- 
osity or from stupidity has been known to remain on the 
ground to be killed b>' a stick. From this lack of sus- 
picion it has received the name “fool quail.” It affords 
the sportsman with a dog much better shooting than its 
more erratic crested relatives. Grassy or bushy cover is 
more necessary to this bird than to the scaled quail or 
Gambel quail. Unlike the latter species, it does not pack, 
though it is more or less migratory. Its nesting habits 
are not well known. Bendire describes a nest found in 
Kinney county, Texas, June 22, i8go. It was placed in a 
depression of the ground and contained ten eggs. 
FOOD HABITS. 
The food habits of the Mearns quail are not well 
known. The Biological Survey has examined the con- 
tents of nine crops and stomachs, secured in Texas and 
New Mexico during August and November. Two* of the 
birds were killed in a patch of cactus. They contained 
seeds and spines from the prickly pear, acacia, and other 
seeds, grass blades and a trace of insects — weevils and 
other beetles — besides a large quantity of coarse sand and 
iron ore. The other seven birds were shot in August. 
Two had their crops filled with the bulbs of a lily. The 
others also had eaten lily bulbs, which in the five birds 
made three-fourths of the food. The other food was 
prickly pear fruit, seeds of legumes and spurges, and such 
insects as weevils, smooth caterpillars, hairy caterpillars, 
bugs, crickets and grasshoppers. Cassin states that the 
contents of the crop of a specimen sent him from Texas 
by Captain French "consisted exclusively of fragments of 
insects, pronounced by Dr. Leconte to be principally 
grasshoppers and a specimen of Spectrum.” According 
to Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, the Mearns quail ap- 
peared quite at home in cultivated fields and stubble of 
the ranches. Away from civilization it prefers districts 
covered with open forest, with alternate areas of grass 
and scattered bushy undergrowth, or hillsides covered 
with grass and bushes. Its habits vary considerably with 
the locality. Bendire records that the species lives in 
rocky ravines and arroyos, but quickly adapts itself to 
ITbe typical Massena quail {Cyrtonyx montesuma') is a bird of the 
mountains about the Mexican' tableland, and gives way to the 
paler Mearns quail (C. m. mearnsi) in northern Mexico and the 
southwestern United States. 
ranch conditions and may be seen running about to 
gather kernels of scattered grain. He says also that it 
is fond of acorns, mountain laurel, arbutus, cedar and 
other berries, and notes that its large, strong feet are well 
suited to unearthing the bulbs on which it feeds. He 
found holes two inches deep which it had dug for this 
purpose. These quail often come out into mountain roads 
to search for scattered grain and to dust themselves. As 
they are readily tamed, they could doubtless be success- 
fully introduced into other regions. 
Another Snake Story. 
This story should by rights be told either by Coahoma 
or Horace Kephart. For, I freely admit, it is the kind 
of story which requires a more authoritative name than 
mine for its sponsor; which requires a boldness in the 
telling possessed only by those who have seen snakes 
climb trees without wriggling, and stand on the tips of 
their tails on -the picture moulding. 
The other night I was going down in the country to 
kill thirty-three quail, and a man in the smoking com- 
partment of the car told me the story exactly as I relate 
it, and gave me his name and address, and said that I 
might print the latter as proof, at least, of my own sin- 
cerity in repeating it. He said : 
“When I was a young man, living on a farm in the 
mountain region of Pennsylvania, one of the women folks 
came to call me, stating that there was a large rattle- 
snake in the barn. I ran up there, and in the manger 
part of the ground floor of the barn, found a rattler 
about four feet and a half long and as thick as my wrist. 
I got a hay fork and got over the feed rack and stuck 
one of the tines of the fork through his body. He 
thrashed around at a terrible rate, and I was somewhat 
at a loss to know how to kill him, so I called to the 
girl to come over and hold the fork, which I had then 
shoved up tight against the wall, until I could get a 
stick and kill the snake. The snake was still thrashing 
around when she took hold of the fork, the handle of 
which was five or six feet in length, but almost imme- 
diately thereafter the snake ceased its struggles, raised 
its head, opened its jaws wide and shot out at that girl 
two streams of liquid, which fell on her dress about six 
inches apart and actually trickled down the dress. It 
was a pink calico dress, and the poison took the color 
out of the dress and left it with the two streaks show- 
ing white.” 
Now, the man who told the story was the kind of a 
man that — well, you know there are two kinds of men; 
one kind that cannot be believed, either because they are 
not close observers or because they are not conscientious ; 
and the other kind, that somehow carry conviction to 
you ; and this man was of the last-named kind. I felt that he 
was truthful. If the story is true, it means that a rattle- 
snake when it strikes is able to exercise control over 
his “hypodermic” and to regulate the dose. That here 
v/as a very mad snake who could not get at the person it 
wanted to poison and so undertook to administer it at 
long range. 
And if this is true, it is possible to adduce the proof. 
For if a poisonous snake can control the ejection of its 
venom there is a sort of constrictive muscle attached to 
or about the poison sac, and the muscle is supplied with 
a motor nerve with which to set it in operation. 
It seems to me I never go hunting that I do not see 
and hear something. The next day, while walking 
through the woods, my companion said, as a chicken 
hawk flew by overhead, “What kind of a bird is that?” 
“That,” said I, as my Parker barked and the bird 
tumbled far down the hillside, “is the kind of creature 
you read about now and then in the papers, that eats a 
quail a day for thirty days.” George Kennedy. 
Work of the Biological Survey. 
Economic Ornithology, 
From advance sheets of the Report of the Secretary of Agriculture. 
This section of the Biological Survey is engaged 
in the study of birds in their various relations to man. 
Two principal lines of investigation are followed. In 
the first, the habits of birds are studied in the field, 
especially with reference to their food. Orchards, gar- 
dens, and grain fields are visited in order to determine 
whether birds damage crops, attack insects, both in- 
jurious and beneficial species, and to what extent they 
feed upon wild fruits and weed seeds. In this field 
study it is desired to enlist the co-operation of every 
cultivator of the soil. In the second, stomachs of 
birds are examined in the laboratory and their con- 
tents tabulated. In addition to the stomachs collected 
by our own assistants, many are obtained from orni- 
thologists throughout the country. From 1885 to 1897, 
24.000 stomachs had been collected, and of these about 
12.000 had been examined. Since then stomachs have 
been received at an average rate of more than 4,000 
annually, and the number is constantly increasing from 
year to year. The total number now on hand is about 
66,000. 
Economic Mammalogy, 
In connection with the study of the geographical dis- 
tribution of mammals, field naturalists are instructed 
to observe particularly the food habits of each species, 
to secure data concerning their relation to the farmer, 
whether beneficial or injurious. Many stomachs have 
been examined and others are now on hand awaiting 
examination. 
During the past eight years experiments in the usei 
of poisons and other means for destroying noxious 
mammals have been made, both in the laboratory and 
in the field. Rats, prairie dogs, ground squirrels, 
rabbits, field mice, and pocket gophers have been the 
subjects of these experiments. 
Special reports on prairie dogs, ground squirrels, 
pocket gophers, jack rabbits, and coyotes have been 
published, and investigations concerning these and 
other mammal pests are being continued. A great 
mass of notes on the habits of mammals has been ac- 
cumulated, and reports on the economic relations of 
field mice, beavers, wolves and skunks are now in 
course of preparation. 
