BOB-WHITES AND QUAILS: GAMBEL QUAIL 
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table foods eaten. As Merrill reports, however, the food in summer, though partly 
weed seed and a little vegetation, is “essentially insects, mainly grasshoppers.” 
Ants, leaf hoppers, stink bugs, cucumber beetles and other insects eaten by the 
quail point to the value of the chicks which, like other young, are doubtless highly 
insectivorous. 
General Habits. —The handsome Gambel Quail, locally but incor¬ 
rectly called California Quail, with its black decurved plume, black and 
buffy belly, and striped chestnut sides, may be met with in the Lower 
Sonoran Zone in quail brush (Atriplex lentiformis) and creosote, and in 
hot mesquite valleys or their brushy slopes, in screw bean and palo 
verde thickets and among patches of prickly pear. It is not generally 
found so far from water as the Scaled Quail, which eats more juicy insect 
food, but at times both are seen in the same landscape. 
An interesting hybrid of the Scaled and Gambel Quails was taken 
from a covey of Gambel Quails on November 26, 1916, by Mr. W. E. 
Watson of Whiskey Creek near Pinos Altos, not far from Silver City. 
It was apparently an adult male in mature plumage. Its parentage was 
evident although the scaling was striking and the general characters of 
the Scaled Quail predominated over most of the body. The crest and 
head and belly markings were a compromise between the two. The 
specimen was sent to Mr. R. T. Kellogg who forwarded it to me for 
examination and record in the Biological Survey, after which, at Mr. 
Kellogg’s request, I sent it to the artist, Louis Agassiz Fuertes. In 
acknowledging its receipt he wrote on August 4, 1927, “The beautiful 
little 1 Calliphortyx 1 or 4 Lophopepla 1 is so pretty and interesting that I am 
going to paint it before shipping it on to Mr. Kellogg. The presence 
of rufous as a substitute for a half developed black is very significant. 
It is often, as you know, the female substitute for male black (Merganser 
heads etc. etc.) and the crest just half way between the parents in char¬ 
acter and the throat show this very nicely” (Auk, 1928, p. 210). 
In inhabited regions, in places where cattle trails lead to water, the 
GambePs pretty foot prints call up pleasant pictures of morning pro¬ 
cession of thirsty little “black-helmeted” pedestrians, talking cheerfully 
as they go. For it “seems most at home about small farms, such 
as those cultivated by the Spanish-Americans, which dot the narrow 
canyons and river valleys” (Ligon, 1927, p. 135). It often lives in 
alfalfa fields and nests in vineyards. Its nesting season extends from 
June well into August. In 1913, Professor Merrill reported—“a pair 
nested on the State College grounds under a shadscale, bringing out 
the batch of young on June 8th. On July 5th a flock of twenty young 
and old was noted in the Organ Mountains at about 6,000 feet. Old 
and young may be seen by hundreds in the valley in the sandy regions 
covered with mesquite, among the tornillos and in the cultivated tracts 
as well” (MS). 
