The California Quail 
231 
Dust 
Baths 
jay, snake, or four-footed creature. This is unfortunate, because Quails 
often select places for their nests near houses or on cultivated lands. 
Very rarely one will find a Quail’s nest in which the eggs are just 
hatching, and the young have such an instinct for hiding that they will 
actually run to cover with half of the egg-shell still clinging to their backs ! 
The tiny youngsters give a little weak-voiced peep or two, and then all 
is quiet. They would be stepped on and crushed before they would 
make their hiding-place known ! They run about in a most lively way by 
the time they are two or three days old, and are often to be seen along 
the less-frequented roads in summer time. 
Like chickens, the Quail love to scratch in the dust, and a dusty 
road, without too many passers-by, has a strong attraction for them. It 
is a pretty sight to see the old ones leading the broods in such places, 
stopping to pick up seeds here and there, with their 
head-plumes bobbing each time they give a peck at a 
seed, wallowing in the dust now and again, but ever 
with a watchful eye for danger; while the youngsters run hither and 
thither, now scattering a little, then closing up again at a warning from 
the old ones, covering the dust with the tracks of their little feet, and 
gradually working their way along the road. 
Each flock of Quails has its own special domain, and never wanders 
far away ; and in the summer, before the birds are made wild by the 
opening of the shooting-season, any one passing often over a road early 
in the morning, or late in the afternoon, may see the same flock again and 
again, and watch the youngsters grow. While the Quails scatter out in 
pairs in the nesting season, and keep their broods separate for a little 
time when still very young, they soon begin to band together ; and where 
they are plentiful the bands become larger and larger as fall approaches, 
until, in places, they number hundreds in a flock. But in the more thickly 
settled country they are sadly diminishing, and one may find only a small 
band of ten or twelve living near a spring where he used to see a hundred. 
While the California Quail is very wary in some ways, it often takes 
up its abode in the vicinity of houses, and even in cities where there are 
gardens with shrubbery. Unlike the eastern Quail — the Bobwhite — which 
spends the night on the ground, the California Quails invariably roost 
in bushes or trees, and sometimes take possession of a 
garden, and even walk around the porches of houses 
where protected from marauders. But let anyone try 
to get near them, and off they go, with their peculiar whirring of the 
wings. This bird can be more or less domesticated by keeping it in an 
enclosed place, and sometimes it nests in confinement, but it seldom gets 
really tame. 
In some parts of the State, especially in the southern interior, these 
Quails will run long distances, instead of flying, when disturbed by the 
hunter — often as far as half a mile. In the more wooded parts they fly 
into trees, where they manage to hide themselves in such a mianner 
Familiar 
Ways 
