CALIFORNIAN QUAIL. 
655 
as they do not take a general alarm on being approached, 
but rise at intervals only by two or three at a time. 
The American Quail is about 9 inches long, and 14 in alar extent. 
Line over the eye descending down the side of the neck, with the 
chin and throat pure white, the latter (in the full grown bird) bound- 
ed by a descending crescent of black. Crown, neck, and upper 
part of the breast reddish-brown. The sides of the neck nearly be- 
low the crescent, are spotted with white and black on a rufous ground. 
Back, shoulders, and lesser wing-coverts, cinnamon brown mingled 
with ash-color, and minutely pointed with black. Wings dusky, the 
coverts edged with yellowish-white. Lower part of the breast and 
belly white, faintly tinged with yellow, and each feather elegantly 
variegated with a wide arrow-head of black. Tail ash-colored, mi- 
nutely spotted with reddish-brown. Bill black. Iris hazel. Legs 
and feet pale ash-color inclining to leaden blue. — By Buffon and oth- 
ers, ^the bill of the full grown young, as the Mexican or Louisiana 
Quail, is, by mistake, colored red. Mauduyt, however, in the Ency- 
clopedic Methodique (Ornithol.) i. pp. 599, 600, says expressly, we 
frequently receive this bird among collections made in Louisiana, 
but in all that we have seen the bill is not red , but dark brown. 
CALIFORNIAN OUAIL. 
( Perdix californica , Lath. Synops. Suppl. ii. p. 281. No. 7. Tetrao 
calif or nicus ^ Nat. Miscel. tab. 345.) 
Sp. Charact. — Crested; cinereous brown, varied with yellowish; 
the throat black, bounded with yellowish-white.] — The female 
lighter, destitute of black. 
This curious species, discovered by Menzies, is said 
to be chiefly, if not wholly confined to the west side of 
the northern Andes, and is common throughout the prov- 
ince of California, and the territory of the Oregon. Lit- 
tle or nothing is known of the manners of this remote 
bird. A covey, however, have been recently introduced 
alive to the Zoological Gardens. Among these, the pug- 
nacious character of the males was nearly as conspicuous 
as in the Grous. 
