Jan., 1905 | 
THE CONDOR 
15 
were all on the ground and, while always more or less concealed, yet it seemed to 
me that the rich buff-colored eggs were rather conspicuous objects. A single egg 
was first discovered on June 12 in a battered old nest of 1902, or possibly even an 
earlier date. The egg was a dried up specimen of chalky appearance, which had 
lost its original color and lustre, having lain under many feet of snow for one win- 
ter at least. The nest still showed a slight concavity, being protected under the 
outer edge of a mass of deer brush ( Ceanothus velutinus). On June 13 a nest full 
of egg-shells was found neatly tucked away along the northwest side of a small 
boulder and partly concealed by dwarf man/.anita. The shells seemed to repre- 
sent about eight eggs and still possessed their color and lustre to a remarkable de- 
gree. Evidently, however, these too had passed through a winter, for the snow 
had only recently disappeared from this locality and indeed still existed in isolated 
drifts of considerable magnitude. Acting on this clue I found two days later, June 
15, a nest with seven eggs in a precisely similar situation and partly concealed by 
the same kind of dwarf manzanita sprays. It was composed of pine needles and 
was eight inches in diameter and three inches deep in the center. This nest was 
carefully observed during the remainder of our stay at Blood’s, or until June 21. 
On the 17th eight eggs were in the nest and another was laid on the 19th, appar- 
ently during the early morning. At eleven o’clock a. m. on the 20th, the nest 
still contained nine eggs but before one o’clock of the same day a tenth had been 
added. The female was on the nest at 10 a. m. the following day but I approached 
her too closely and she left the nest without having laid another egg. Whether 
she would have done so I did not determine, not caring to collect the bird and this 
being the last day of our stay at Blood’s. My fourth nest was also found on June 
15, and like the other contained seven eggs. It was in rather an open situation 
under a Murray pine and five feet away from the trunk, was composed entirely of 
pine needles and measured nine inches in diameter and three inches in depth. 
Like the two last it was partially concealed by low sprigs of manzanita. Eight 
eggs were in the nest when visited the next day, the 16th, nine were found on the 
1 8th, ten on the 20th and eleven on the 21st. These two cases then are not in 
agreement with Major Bendire’s statement that “an egg is laid daily until the 
set is complete . ” a The fifth nest was found on June 20 by tramping through deer 
brush near the place where a male had been heard calling for several days. It was 
the best concealed of any, being under quite a thick mass of ceanothus, though I 
hardly think I should have overlooked it, even though the female had not flushed 
with a great whirr of wings when I was three or four feet away from her. The 
nest was quite well constructed of coarse dry grass, a few small twigs, and many 
breast feathers from the bird. The measurements were the same as those of the 
last nest described and the eggs were twenty-two in number, laid in two layers, 
the lower of nineteen eggs with three on top in the center. The set was probably 
complete, as the bird was again flushed from the nest after an hour or two, though 
the eggs showed no entirely positive trace of incubation. The question naturally 
arises in case of a set of this size whether it might have been the joint product of 
two females. I could not decide this point and the eggs themselves did not make 
the matter clear. Both long ovate and short ovate forms were in the nest but 
there were also intermediates and the color tones showed but little variation. I 
might say in this connection that before I discovered this nest I was drawn away 
in the opposite direction for a considerable distance by a clucking sound which 
certainly came from a plumed quail. It was impossible to see the bird, however, 
a Bendire’s Life Histories of N. A. Birds, Vol. I, p. 16. 
