226 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
Nest. —So far as known, a depression in the ground well lined and partly con¬ 
cealed by grass, or a bulky mass of grass like a rat’s nest, the grass pulled up by 
the bird, and with one small entrance. Eggs: Usually 10-12, white. 
Food. —As far as known, lily bulbs—% of the food in 5 specimens, and to judge 
from their large strong digging feet provided with sharp claws perhaps the principal 
article of their diet—also great numbers of acorns and piny on nuts, and in addition 
seeds and spines of prickly pear, acacia, seeds of legumes and spurges, grass blades, 
berries of mountain laurel, arbutus, and cedar, and such insects as weevils, cater¬ 
pillars, bugs, crickets, and grasshoppers. 
General Habits. —The striking contrast between the plumage of 
the Scaled and Mearns or “Fool Quails” is explained by their habitats. 
Imagine a dark-fronted Mearns on the bare gray ground of the treeless 
desert or among the open desert bushes frequented by the pale blue 
Scaled Quail. He would stand out rods away! But in the grassy valleys 
and on the rocky, brushy slopes of the mountain gulches, he is part of 
the landscape. As he flushes from the grass at your feet, the striking 
color of his underparts and what Mr. Fuertes well calls the “wall-paper 
pattern” of his head are hidden from you, and his streaked back fits in so 
well with the streaked ground cover that he vanishes before your very 
eyes, to be seen no more unless almost stepped on, when he again bursts 
away with his quavering call. This habit of “lying very closely” and 
taking flight only when nearly trodden on, is responsible for his name of 
“Fool Quail,” and by its means, as Mr. Fuertes pointed out in his inter¬ 
esting article, in the Condor (1903, p. 115), he hides the conspicuous 
brown and black of his underparts. The painting of this remarkably 
patterned quail (facing this page), from a study made when Mr. Fuertes 
was camping with Mr. Bailey in the Chisos Mountains, Texas, shows 
the spot where the artist, waking from his sleeping bag at sunrise, first 
saw the bird he had been eager to meet with. When the Quail also 
discovered him, as Mr. Fuertes describes it, in his excitement he “quick¬ 
ened his trot, compressed his plumage, and raised his head to its highest, 
as a guinea hen will do when slightly alarmed. But accompanying this 
action he displayed his curious crest in a peculiar and striking way. 
Instead of raising it as a bob-white would have done, he spread it out 
laterally, like half a mushroom” (in Handbook, pp. 123-124). This 
mushroom pose of the crest is most interestingly depicted by Mr. 
Fuertes in his Condor article (1903, facing p. 113). 
The low call of the Mearns Quail, suggestive of the quavering cry 
of a Screech Owl, adds to the fascination of the pursuit of this illusory 
bird, for it is ventriloquial in quality and leads you such a fruitless 
chase that you return to camp with an exaggerated interest in this 
feathered Will-o’-the-wisp. If fortunate you may find where the bird 
has been and by looking about get a clue to its habits. 
On a steep south slope where the snow soon thaws, Mr. Ligon once 
