FOREST AND STREAM. 
05 
Feb. 2, 1907.] 
California’s Favorite Game Bird. 
What sportsman is there who having had the 
pleasure of seeing the California valley quail has 
not at once fallen in love with him? In my 
opinion there is no bird so gamy and resource¬ 
ful and none which can more sharply test the 
nerve, eye and skill of the man behind the gun 
or prove the good qualities of a dog as can this 
little prince of American partridges. 
Valley quail are found in all the valleys and 
foothills throughout the length and breadth of 
California, and not many years ago were very 
plentiful, but owing to the drain made upon 
them by the privilege heretofore granted to 
sell game, aggravated by the non bag limit, their 
numbers greatly decreased, until 1901, when a 
law was passed limiting the bag in one day to 
twenty-five birds and prohibiting their sale. ■ 
Since that time they have commenced to increase 
until now it is no difficult task for one-to leave 
San Francisco or other large cities in this State 
in the morning and return in the evening of the 
same day with the bag limit. The birds are 
found in large bevies in all the hills, ravines and 
valleys, along the edges of the hay and grain 
fields, in the stock pastures, orchards and vine¬ 
yards ; in fact, almost anywhere where they find 
proper cover, water and feed, and are not too 
indiscriminately shot at or hunted. O11 the bevies 
being flushed and followed they scatter and lie 
well and close and afford great sport in shoot¬ 
ing over a well trained dog. 
They will lie until almost stepped upon, and 
when they do flush will rise with a great whirr 
of wings that will startle almost any one, and 
are off like “a streak of greased lightning” pre¬ 
senting a mark that will test the eye and nerve 
of the best of marksmen. He who thinks he is 
“in. it” with the best of them at jacksnipe or 
Bobwhite, will find that something is wrong 
when he first tries to shoot the valley quail, and 
he will burn some powder before he gets on to 
the knack of stopping the little blue streaks. 
When the warm sunshine of early spring 
awakens life to renewed activities, and the buck¬ 
eye and the wild lilac are bursting forth into 
bloom, then it is that the valley quail turns his 
* thoughts to love. Well he knows, as with par¬ 
donable pride he loudly proclaims that fact to 
all passersby, that he will not be molested by 
man during this felicitous season. Standing erect, 
majestic, proud, haughty and defiant, he calls 
from the top of some old stump or dead bush 
“Here, here, here; we camp here,” in a loud 
clear voice, and the country folks all know that 
the quail are nesting. Having selected his com¬ 
panion for the summer the pair seek a suitable 
place to build the nest, secure from skujik, dog 
or cat or the thoughtless school boy. The nest 
is usually built in a slight depression in the 
ground, and is chiefly composed of dry leaves 
and a few spears of grass. A great many nests 
are built in cocks of hay or in hay and grain 
fields and are consequently destroyed by thought¬ 
less farmers. The more careful husbandman, 
however, takes the trouble to mark the nest by 
driving near by a stake to which is attached a 
white rag, thus being able to know where the 
nests are, and to avoid destroying them while 
harvesting his crop. He knows that the quail 
are valuable to him in more ways than one, and 
acts both wisely and humanely in accordance 
with that knowledge. In these nests are de¬ 
posited from fourteen to twenty-two sharp 
pointed oval eggs of a dirty white color covered 
with dark brown spots. The male assists in the 
incubation of the eggs as well as in the care 
of the young, and a proud father indeed is he. 
In about twenty-three days the eggs hatch, and 
the young have often been seen running from the 
nest with part of the egg shell attached to them. 
The eggs all hatch about the same time, and 
the whole family do not go any great distance 
from the nest, but nevertheless never remain very 
near it.* I have often gone to a nest and'found 
the eggs all right, none being even pecked, and 
returned in a few hours to find all the eggs 
hatched out and the family moved. The old 
folks keep everything quiet for the first 
six or eight days after hatching and no 
matter how careful one ntay watch he will 
see and hear but little of them. In about ten 
days the young are -able to fly a little. They are 
fed on insects, and soon learn that their lives 
depend on their sharp eyes and swift move¬ 
ments. Contrary to the habits of some birds, the 
male assists in feeding the young, and t he 
family remains together, and often when not dis¬ 
turbed raises two broods of young in one sea¬ 
son. In this case the male takes care of the first 
brood after they are about fifteen days old. 
The food of the valley quail consists mostly 
of insects, grass and weed seeds, to which might 
be added a little grain, but they are never des¬ 
tructive of crops of any kind. 
Few birds respond more keenly to 1 protection 
than do the valley quail, but on being much 
hunted they become very wild and resort to 
places hard to get at and shoot over. Unlike the 
Bobwhite, they roost in trees and are conse¬ 
quently better protected from' their natural 
enemies. Often when flushed they will alight 
in liveoak trees, from whose thick branches it is 
hard to flush them. 
The different bevies of> young birds remain 
together in the little valleys in the foothills and 
do not migrate, remaining all summer near where 
they are hatched. Late in the fall, when the 
CALIFORNIA VALLEY QUAIL. 
days get short and the evenings and mornings 
cold and frosty, they will go to the tops of .the 
hills where they will be able to get the early 
morning and late evening sun. Here three or 
four families will come together and will in turn 
consolidate, sometimes being as many as 300 to 
1,000 birds in such an aggregation. These large 
bevies remain together all winter and do not 
disband until the next mating season, when 
those that have mated in the spring will leave 
the big bevies and go to the little valleys among 
the foothills to spend the summer and rear their 
young. 
The unmated birds remain on the hilltops and 
in the rough places. These unmated birds are 
always very wild.and flush at a great distance 
in advance of the hunter. They flit down the 
steep hill sides and settle in the thickest cover, 
thus becoming secure from all harm, as it is 
next to impossible to pursue them in such places. 
On the other hand the mated birds become very 
tame when not molested, and can be seen along 
the road sides, or wherever proper cover is 
near. They often build their nests in old straw 
sheds or hay barns, and I have also found them 
nesting in the gardens near dwellings where they 
become almost as gentle as the domestic fowl. 
These mated birds seem to realize that the nearer 
they locate to some farm house the more pro¬ 
tection they will receive. On the lawns sur¬ 
rounding the country residence of the late 
Alonzo Hayward, near San Mateo, Cal., about 
twenty miles south of San Francisco, there can 
be seen almost any afternoon, upward of 1,000 
wild valley quail as they come out from the 
shrubbery surrounding the premises to be fed by 
the gardener. In Golden Gate Park, in the Pre¬ 
sidio, and in all the cemeteries in the city of 
San Francisco, can be seen thousands of wild 
valley quail. It is needless to say that these birds 
are not disturbed in these places and in the early 
morning and evening their calls can be heard in 
every direction. It is indeed a pretty sight to 
see them as they run along the paths and across 
the lawns and to* realize that these are wild— 
absolutely wild quail. 
Under the State law the open season begins 
Oct. 15 and continues until Feb. 15 of the follow¬ 
ing year. In order to thoroughly enjoy the sport 
the hunter should not be too h'eavily clad. He 
should wear light but strong shooting clothes 
and heavy hunting shoes with large nails in the 
bottoms, as the quail will lead him over many a 
steep hill. He should use a 12 or 16 gauge gun 
and shells loaded with No. 8 and 9 shot. Thus 
equipped, with a good dog and genial companion 
he is ready for the sport. 
He who has not previously had experience 
with the valley quail will be surprised at his 
gameness and at the many tricks he has up his 
sleeve to mislead both the hunter and dog. The 
birds having flushed and flown a short distance 
to good cover, alight and run a little distance 
when they scatter and “stick.” The hunters 
come up and the dogs are working nicely and 
finally come to a point. Up walks the novice 
to flush the bird at point, when out from under 
his feet flushes another quail and with a great 
whirr of wings is off like a blue streak. Bang- 
bang. Never touched him. The novice reload¬ 
ing, turns to explain why, when up goes another 
with the same result as before. 
“That first bird I shot behind and that last 
one turned just as I pulled the trigger, but I 
will get the next one all right.” 
“Mark,” calls his companion, and “I believe 
I am rattled,” exclaims the novice, “for I shot 
right through the top of that big bush and not 
within six feet of that bird.” 
With a determined look on his countenance 
and with jaws firmly set he begins to climb the 
steep hill to where the dogs are again pointing. 
A quail flushes within three feet of and behind 
him. He quickly turns—half falls—loses his 
hat and scores a double miss. “This beats all; I 
have done some shooting before, but nothing to 
V "equal this. Here I am with the reputation of 
being a crack shot and I can’t hit one of those 
little blue devils to save my soul.” But being a 
true sportsman he can’t help admiring the game¬ 
ness of the little sprites and enjoy the misses 
fully as well as the kills, if not more so. 
He proceeds now more fully determined than 
ever to learn how to drop some of those “little 
blue devils” and the better he becomes ac¬ 
quainted with valley quail gameness and cunning 
the better he likes his company. He will lose 
no opportunity to be with him in the hills, not 
caring so much for the great bag he may be able 
to take as for the opportunity offered by this 
little bird to test his every uood quality of marks¬ 
manship and to try out the mettle of his dog. 
Therefore he returns from the field—it may be 
with only a few birds—but fully satisfied that he 
has been well repaid for his day’s hard work. 
As he reviews the incidents of the day around 
that evening’s camp-fire you will invariably find 
him enthusiastic and loud in his praise of this 
California’s favorite bird, and the years will find 
him growing more and more devoted to its fas¬ 
cinating pursuit. For here is where the true 
measure of a quail shooter’s skill is taken, and 
nothing so stimulates a true sportsman's interest 
as being pitted against a quarry whose cunning 
intelligence oft puts his own favorite steel to 
shame. Walter R. Welch. 
Capitoia, Cal. 
BREAKFAST IN CAMP 
is nothing without coffee, and coffee is nothing without 
Cream. (Drdihariiy cream is out of the question nin- 
times out of ten, but Borden’s Peerless Brand Evaporated 
Milk takes its place perfectly and keeps indefinitely until 
onened. It is unsweetened and has the natural cream 
flavor and color.— Adv. 
