Handbook of birds of the western United States including the great plains, great basin, Pacific slope, and lower Rio Grande valley (1908) (14725523936)

Identifier: handbookofbir00bail (find matches)
Title: Handbook of birds of the western United States including the great plains, great basin, Pacific slope, and lower Rio Grande valley
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Bailey, Florence Merriam, 1863-1948
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress



Text Appearing Before Image:
he birdssettle down to home duties; and before the flow^ers are gone may befound leading about families of striped-backed chicks. The chicksmust be guarded from a host of enemies, but the old birds are wiseguardians, and early autumn shows large flocks of plump, nearlyfull-grown quail, always on the alert, quick to scatter, but sure toreassemble, calling back and forth in small piping voices till the lastof the brood is in. Later in the season the families collect in largeflocks, often of fifty or a hundred, and scatter in the daytime tofeed in the open, returning at night with a roar of wings to roost insome dense thicket or brushy bottom-land, huddled together in asnug, feathery mass. To the pot-hunter and trapper the birds are easy prey, but withproper protection they increase so rapidly as to be in no danger ofextermination. Vernon Bailey. GENUS CYRTONYX. 296. Cyrtonyx montezumse mearnsi Nelson. MeaknsQuail.Bill very stout; head with a full crest of soft, blended, depressed feath-
Text Appearing After Image:
MEARNS QUAIL GROUSE, PARTRIDGES, QUAILS, ETC. 123 ers ; tail much less than half as long as wing, its feathers soft, narrow attips, and hardly distinguishable from coverts;. wing coverts and innerquills highly developed, folding entirely over the primaries; tarsus andfeet heavy, with long powerful claws ; sexes very different. Adult male :head markings black and wliite; tip of crest fawn color; back palebrown, barred, vermiculated, and streaked with white ; under parts withmedian line dark brown and sides slaty gray spotted with white. Adultfemale: head without stripes, prevailing color pale pinkish cinnamon ; upperparts coarsely mottled and finely barred with black, brown, and lavender,and feathers with coarse white shaft streaks; chin whitish ; neck withlavender cape specked and bordered with black ; rest of under parts lightcinnamon or lavender, breast and sides with black specks and shaftstreaks. Young : similar to female, but under parts thickly spotted.Wing: 6.70, tail 2.28, bil