MOUNTAIN QUAIL. Oreortyx picta plumifera (Gould)

Field characters.—A quail larger than Valley Quail; sexes alike; a longer slender, usually backward-directed, black plume on head. Bands of black, white, and chestnut on sides of body; throat chestnut; head, breast, and forepart of black, bluish slate; rest of back and wings, olive brown; belly whitish. Escapes usually be running; flight direct, with heavily whirring wing beats. Voice: A single loud resonant quee-ärk or woock uttered at intervals; also other shorter calls when alarmed, ca-ca-ca-ca-cree'-a, or gup-gup-gup, quee'-ar, quee'-ar.

Occurrence.—Common in Transition and Canadian zones on both slopes of Sierra Nevada, migrating down to below level of heavy snow in winter. Observed west to Mount Bullion and Smith Creek (east of Coulterville) and east to near Williams Butte. Lives in and around brush patches.

The traveler approaching the mountains from the west will first meet the Mountain Quail when he has passed the hot dry slopes of the foothills and enters the cooler shelter of the main forest belt. From here on, in the vicinity of yellow pines, incense cedars, and silver and red firs, these elegant birds are to be encountered in moderate numbers.

With the coming of the warm days of late spring, and on into early summer, the males perch on fallen logs, open spaces on the ground, or even on branches of black oaks, and announce their amatory feelings by giving utterance to their loud calls with such force and vigor that these resound through the forests for a half-mile or more, commanding the attention of all within hearing. One type of call consists of but a single note, quee-ärk, and this is repeated at rather long and irregular intervals. One bird timed by the watch, June 3, 1915, gave his calls at intervals of 7, 6, 8, 5, 8, 6, 7, 5, 7, 9, and 9 seconds, respectively, and continued at about the same rate for a long time afterward. This intermittent utterance lends to the call a distinctiveness and attractiveness which would be lost if it were given in quicker time.

Another type of call consists of a series of sharper notes, ker, uttered more rapidly, something after the manner of a flicker. All these notes are to be heard at any time of the year, but not so persistently in December as in June.

The females, so similar to the males in plumage as not to be distinguishable under ordinary circumstances, are not much in evidence after the nesting sites have been selected. Until then, the couples flush together from the ceanothus thickets. So careful are the brooding birds in quitting their nesting precincts, that we did not succeed in finding a single nest. Broods are to be expected on the west slope of the Sierras in late June or early July. A covey of small young was seen abroad at Smith Creek (Dudley) on June 20 (1920). Mr. W. O. Emerson (1893, p. 179) found a brood of downy young in Yosemite Valley on June 19, 1893. To the east of the Sierran crest the season may be somewhat later.

The average number of eggs laid by the Mountain Quail is fairly large (11, according to a summary of data from all over California), and this is directly correlated with the degree of danger incurred in rearing the chicks to maturity. The mortality from various causes is large. Mr. Dave Bolton, one-time roadmaster at Cascades, told us that in midsummer there were usually about 4 broods of Mountain Quail brought off in the vicinity of his home, each comprising 10 to 15 young, but that by Christmas or New Year's Day the entire number of birds would be reduced to 2 or 3. A brood of 14 of the summer of 1915 was reduced to 4 by early November. Mr. Bolton attributed this decrease to wildcats and stated that tracks of these animals were to be seen in the dust of the road almost every morning in summer.

To this we would add that Gray Foxes probably account for the death of a number of quail. On December 24, 1915, in Yosemite Valley, a steel trap set for carnivores was found in the morning to contain the leg and foot of a Mountain Quail. Near-by were feathers of the same species of bird with some dung of the Gray Fox. The inference is easy. A quail had stumbled into our trap and the fox had taken advantage of the meal thus afforded, without himself falling victim to any of the other traps in the setting. But the Gray Fox and the Wildcat are, as the bunches of feathers which we found so often elsewhere clearly testified, sufficiently agile to capture these birds in the open. Nevertheless, the large broods enable enough representatives of this species to live through the winter to insure renewal of the population. The young Mountain Quail are rather slow to attain adult size; coveys seen in late September and even early October contained individuals only about two-thirds grown.

The food of the Mountain Quail comprises both animal and vegetable matter and is quite varied in character. Witness the following array of items from the crop of a single bird taken June 6, 1915, at Bean Creek, near Coulterville: Two or more seed pods of Leguminosae; flowers of manzanita (Arctostaphylos mariposa.); pieces of fern leaves; green berries of Ceanothus cuneatus; several unidentified seeds; 2 nymphs and 2 adult 'bugs' (Membracid Hemiptera); many ants (Camponotus sp.); several wingless grasshoppers; 1 small centipede; 4 beetles (2 Chrysomelidae, 2 Carabidae); and several small pieces of bone.

Another crop, from near El Portal, November 21, 1914, held 2 seeds of wild oats (Avena fatua); 30 seeds of yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa); more than 400 seeds and many leaves of clover (Trifolium obtusiflorum); 2 ladybird beetles (Hippodamia convergens). Another from El Portal taken on December 1, 1914, had only parts of manzanita berries (Arctostaphylos mariposa.); and one taken from a bird on Feliciana Mountain, October 30, 1915, had 2 capsules and 148 seeds of croton (Croton sp.). It is evident that the Mountain Quail feeds on whatever is abundant: flowers and leaves of plants and insects in spring, seeds and leaves of plants in fall when insects are not so abundant.