1915, Mar. 
FROM FIELD AND STUDY 
97 
A Curious Set of Gambel Quail Eggs. — During the season of 1913 I collected several 
interesting sets of common birds, among them one of fifteen eggs of the Gambel Quail, 
taken May 24, in the mesquite forest near Tucson. The photograph (fig. 38) shows this 
set, which was unusual in the great variation in the sizes of the eggs; for it contains not 
only the smallest, but also the largest egg of Lophortyx gambeli that I have ever taken. 
The largest and smallest are shown side by side in the center of the photograph, 
and the others are arranged in the order in which I give the sizes (in inches), as fol- 
lows: ,94x.74; 1.06x.84; 1.04x.85; 1.10x.89; 1.07x.88; 1.17x.91; 1.18x.90; 1.22x.93; 1.19x.95; 
1.27x.96; 1.31x.95; 1.30x.98; 1.31x1.03; 1.36x1.00; 1.45x1.03. The average of forty normal 
specimens is 1.23x.93. — F. C. Willard, Tombstone, Arizona. 
The Breeding of the Snowy Egret in California. — It is well-nigh incredible that the 
early “fathers”, Gambel, Heermann, Cooper, and the rest, who regarded the Snowy Her- 
ons ( Egretta cancliclissima ) as “abundant” in California should have recorded no specific 
instance of their nesting within our borders. Cooper’s naive remark that “In summer it 
migrates to the summit of the Sierra Nevada” shows, perhaps, how wide of the mark 
they were in their search. Without a shadow of doubt this species, save for a thirty- 
year period cf persecution by plume hunters, has nested in certain flooded low-lands of 
Fig. 38. A curious set of eggs of the Gambel Quail 
Photo by F. C. Willard. 
our interior valleys from time immemorial; yet it remained, apparently, for a lucky 
accident of the past season to establish the first authentic breeding record for the State. 
At a point in Merced County some miles from Dos Palos, my son and I, on the 26th of 
May, 1914, came upon five pairs of these birds nesting in close association with a colony 
of Black-crowned Night Herons, on a cat-tail island in the middle of a large overflow 
pond. The Squawks outnumbered the Snowies fifty to one, and it was impossible in the 
confusion attendant upon approach to tell just where the wary Herons got up. A- thor- 
ough canvass of the reedy city, however, discovered five nests which contained a uni- 
formly smaller type of eggs, four of five and one of four. One of these began to hatch 
on the day following, and the eggs yielded in turn chicks covered with a sparse long 
ivliite down. The operation established also the fact that the Snowy Heron deposits its 
eggs every other day, and the complementary fact that incubation begins with the depo- 
sition of the first egg. Indeed it could not well be otherwise, for a single day’s exposure 
to that blazing interior sun would addle an egg, however hardy. 
The youngsters showed, as the days passed, an exaggerated disparity in size and 
strength, yet even when a week old appeared amazingly small and helpless. Neither did 
