Part 2

During a residence of a year in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, where I was developing some mining property, I found the scaled quail in great numbers all around me. Very few of the Mexican people are wing shots and few hunt except for the resulting meat. Little attention, therefore, is paid to the quail, and in the section where I was located I do not believe that even the "oldest inhabitant" of the quail settlement had ever heard the report of a shotgun. I had with me a brace of English setters, and these birds, though found among chino grama grass and low maguey plant, which offered splendid opportunities for hiding, not only tried my patience to the limit, but that of my dogs as well, by deliberately walking about twenty-five to thirty paces in front of me without the least thought of either hiding or taking to wing. By firing a couple of shots over them each morning I soon educated them to flush at the sight of me. In a couple of weeks they behaved very well and furnished me with good sport, hiding readily and lying good for the dogs.

Most of the game birds need more or less educating before they fully meet the requirements of the sportsmen. Most, too, of the complaints that sportsmen make regarding the bad behavior of certain species of game or birds of certain sections should be charged to the lack on the part of the hunter of a knowledge of their habits rather than to the ill manners of the birds. One will often hear it said that certain men are lucky hunters and can not help staggering onto their game. Such men are lucky because they make a close study of the ways of the birds of each separate character of country. Knowing the places in which they will most likely be found feeding, they approach them from such directions as will have a tendency to drive them into the desired cover. A great deal of the annoyance of running birds, I have found, can be avoided by a careful study of their habits and proper management in handling them, and this is especially true of the scaled quail.

=Color=--The back, the wings and tail coverts are a light, ashy blue, but the feathers of the shoulders, breast and abdomen are margined with dark brown, with a yellowish arrow-shaped central spot which gives them the appearance of scales. Its throat is a very faint buff, and instead of the plume of the genus Lophortyx it has a broad erectile crest with the feathers tipped with white. Both sexes are alike.

=Nest and Eggs=--The nesting habits are the same as those of the other species of the blue quail family, but the eggs are more of a buff and generally more speckled with brown.

=Measurements=--About the same as the valley quail.

THE CHESTNUT-BELLIED SCALE QUAIL

(Callipepla squamata castaneigastra)

The chestnut-bellied scaled quail is a subspecies of the scaled quail just described. They are not numerous and hardly enter the territory covered by this work. Intergrades of the two species are occasionally found in northern Mexico and possibly in southeastern Arizona. In general appearance they resemble the former species, being, however, a little darker and with a strong chestnut blotch on the belly.

THE ELEGANT QUAIL

(Callipepla elegans)

Along the western slope of the Sierra Madre range in the state of Sonora, Mexico, is to be found another member of the blue quail family whose habits appeal strongly to the sportsman. This species, known as the elegant quail, is one of the most handsomely marked of the group. From the blending of the white throat of the bobwhite with the black one of the gambel, and the brown of the back of the one with the blue of the other, together with a marked resemblance in its call to that of the bobwhite, suggests the possibility of its origin having resulted from a cross of the two genera. I may add that both the gambel and a species of the =Collinus=, bobwhite, are found in this same section.

The elegant quail is generally found in and around the cultivated fields which they seem to prefer to the open country. While the elegant quail will walk leisurely in front of their pursuer until too closely approached, they can in no sense be termed runners. When flushed they take to cover and lie closely. Like all the quail of Mexico they have been hunted but little and need to be well scared before they become properly educated to the gun. After a few days' hunting I found them a very satisfactory game bird. Being found around the fields, the grounds and cover were all that could be desired for excellent sport.

=Color=--Male--Plume straight, upright feathers about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half in length, varying in color--possibly on account of age--from a light lemon to a dark reddish orange. The throat is finely mottled with small black and white dots, giving it a dark gray appearance. The general color of the back and the wing and tail coverts is a dark blue with about half of the exposed portion of each feather tipped with a bright, rich brown. The breast and abdomen is a light, ashy blue, profusely flecked with large, circular white spots.

Female--The plume is about two-thirds the length of that of the male, brown in color and barred with black. The breast and abdomen are spotted like the male but the back is much the color of the English snipe.

=Nest and Eggs=--The same as the other species of the blue quail.

=Measurements=--Same as the valley quail.

THE MASSENA OR MONTEZUMA QUAIL

(Cyrtonyx Montezuma)

The Massena, or Montezuma quail, is a distinct genus from the blue quail family. In many respects it resembles the bobwhite in color, though far more fancifully marked. It is also nearly one-half larger, though in some parts of Arizona and in New Mexico there is a smaller species of the same genus known as fool quail. The Mexican bird is far from a fool, and although it roosts on the ground like the bobwhite, it is resourceful enough to take care of itself in a country where vermin of all kinds are very plentiful. Its range is from near the northern boundary south through the larger portion of Mexico.

The Montezuma quail is emphatically a grass bird and inhabits the grassy foothills and the cultivated fields, where it affords fine sport with a dog. It is very cosmopolitan as to climate, for it is found at altitudes of from five to six thousand feet, where considerable snow falls, as well as in the foothills of the hot, tropical valleys of the lowlands, and thrives equally well in all sections. It is a bird of peculiar habits. When startled by the approach of an enemy the bevy at once huddles together, where the birds remain motionless until they are approached to within from one to four feet, according to the cover they are in. If they think that they have not been seen or that the object of their alarm is going to pass by, there is not the slightest motion made by any one of them, but when they decide to take wing for safety every bird in perfect unison springs into the air to a height of about six feet and darts rapidly away. They are quick on the wing and seem able to carry away a good deal of shot. The flight generally is not more than one hundred yards, and when they alight they scatter well and will then out-hide any bird that lives. I have both ridden and walked, without a dog, for hours through a country where they were plentiful without seeing a bird, except where I chanced to nearly step upon them, yet with a dog I have found on the same grounds probably an average of fifteen bevies to the square mile. For work with a dog I prefer them to any bird I have ever hunted. They give out a strong scent, for points on bevies of from six to fifteen birds, made thirty to forty yards away are no uncommon occurrence. Then when you walk in front of your dog they never flush until you have almost stepped upon them. A scattered bevy will lie securely hid until each individual is flushed. Unlike the blue quail they never gather in large flocks, but always remain in single broods until broken up in the spring for nesting purposes.

=Color=--Male--The head of these birds have a very bizarre appearance whose strange black and white markings seem to have no more purpose or design than the black and white chalk marks on a clown's face. The head of the male is crested with semi-erectile feathers in the shape of a broad hood of dark yellowish brown color, falling about half way down the neck; groundwork of the back and of the wing and tail coverts is a dark ocher barred with a deep rich brown; breast and flanks are nearly black, dotted with large white spots, and from the throat to the vent is a stripe about five-eighths of an inch wide of a dark rich chestnut.

=Female=--The female, with the exception of the white dots on the breast and flanks is much the color of the female bobwhite.

=Nest and Eggs=--The nest is like that of the quail generally, simply a depression in the ground, carefully hidden away in some thick matted grass or bunch of brush, and generally higher up the hill-sides than they are found at other times. Eggs, white, and of a china appearance, and from ten to fifteen in number.

=Measurements=--While these birds are fully one-half larger than the blue quail, the very short tail makes their total length not over 8 to 9 inches; wing, 5 inches, and bill, 5/8.

THE BOBWHITE

(Colinus virginianus)

I have said that the voice of the bobwhite is heard in the land. This is true, for the clear notes of his little throat awaken the morning echoes from eastern Oregon to the islands of Puget Sound. This great little game bird, whose praise has been recounted in volumes of prose and sung in the rhythmic measures of countless lines of verse, is not a native of the coast, but he knew a good thing when he saw it. When he was turned loose in the Pacific Northwest he cast his bright little eyes about him and remarked to himself:

"This looks good to me. Bobwhite, get busy at once in raising big families and settle up your new domain."

And he has done it, for now the sportsmen of the Pacific Northwest have better bobwhite shooting than is to be found in any part of the eastern states.

The bobwhite roosts on the ground and always remains in single broods. When startled they huddle together and flush in a bunch. They are good hiders and lie well to the dog. They are seldom found far from water and rarely in heavy brush. They are fond of stubble or corn fields and the grassy nooks along the fences. Many efforts have been made to acclimatize this species farther south in California but they have all proved failures on account of the dryer climate and the lack of insects during the rearing season of their young. They must have a damp climate where the vegetation remains green, thus furnishing an abundance of insects during the early summer on which to feed their young. For until a bobwhite is nearly grown it lives almost entirely upon insects.

=Color=--Male--General color of the upper parts, light buff, marked with triangular blotches of brown; head and back of the neck, dark chestnut; forehead, gray; light stripe from above the eye passing down the side of the neck; throat, white or very light buff, faintly bordered with dark brown or black; breast, light buff with the feathers tipped with brown; flanks chestnut mixed with black and white.

Female--Generally lighter, and without the white throat and light breast.

=Nest and Eggs=--The nests are rude depressions on the ground beneath a fence rail or fallen limb, or in a bunch of thick grass or brush. The eggs number anywhere from fifteen to twenty and of a pure white color.

=Measurements=--Total length about nine inches; wing, 4-1/2 inches; bill, 5/8.

THE MASKED BOBWHITE

(Colinus ridgewayi)

A smaller species of the bobwhite, known as the masked bobwhite, were reasonably plentiful along the border of southern Arizona and south through the state of Sonora, Mexico. Like the typical bobwhite they were strictly a field and grass bird. But through the heavy pasturing of that section, together with a series of dry seasons denuding the whole country of such cover as would be necessary for their protection from hawks and vermin, they have become nearly if not quite extinct. They differed from the eastern bobwhite in that the male had a black throat instead of a white one and a bright cinnamon breast. The female differed also in having a light buff throat, and generally of a lighter color.

Order, GALLINAE

Family, TETRAONIDAE

Subfamily, PERDICINAE

Genus Species Common Names Range ---------- ------------------ ----------------- --------------------- {Coast Range of {pictus Mountain quail {California from { {Monterey Bay north { {into Western Oregon. { { {Both sides of the Oreortyx {pictus plumiferus Mountain quail {Sierra Nevadas from { {Central Oregon south. { {Coast range of { {California from { {Monterey Bay south. { { {Peninsula of Lower { {California, {pictus confinis {Lower California {inter-grading in the {mountain quail {northern part with the {pictus plumiferus.

{Coast Range valleys {californicus Valley quail {of California from { {San Francisco Bay { {north into Oregon. { { {Both sides of the { {Sierra Nevadas from Lophortyx {californicus Valley quail {Central Oregon south. {vallicola {Coast range valleys { {south from San { {Francisco Bay into { {Lower California. { { {Gambel quail {Southern Nevada, {gambeli { {Southeastern { {California, Western {Arizona quail {Arizona and Northern {Mexico.

{squamata Scaled quail {Southern Arizona { {and Northern Mexico. Callipepla { {elegans Elegant quail {Southern Sonora, {Mexico.

{Montezuma quail {Southwestern Arizona Cyrtonyx {montezuma { {and south into {Messena quail {Mexico.

{ridgewayi Masked Bobwhite {Northwestern Sonora, { {Mexico. { Colinus { {Introduced and { {acclimated in {virginianus Bobwhite {Washington and Oregon {and the islands {of Puget Sound.

THE WILD TURKEY

If there is any member of the feathered tribe entitled to the designation of royal game bird, it is the wild turkey. This magnificent bird, whose size and cunning challenges at once the admiration and the skill of the sportsman, is a native of North and Central America, and found in its wild state in no other part of the globe. The ocellated turkey, the Central American species, is even more gaudy in plumage than the peacock, but as it is not found within the territorial scope of these articles, I shall leave its resplendent colors to scintillate in its own tropic sun, undescribed.

Of the North American turkeys the scientist recognizes four varieties. The =Meleagris sylvestris= of the eastern states, except Florida, the =Meleagris sylvestris osceola= of Florida, the =Meleagris sylvestris elliotti= of the Rio Grande district of southern Texas and northeastern Mexico, and the =Meleagris gallopavo= of Arizona, New Mexico, part of Colorado, and west and south through the larger portion of old Mexico. It is of this last species that I shall write.

THE MEXICAN WILD TURKEY

(Meleagris gallopavo)

Outside of the progenitors of our common barnyard fowl, there is no wild bird that mankind has domesticated whose distribution in its domestic state has become so wide as that of the wild turkey, and none have been so highly prized as an article of food. It is from the Mexican wild turkey, =Meleagris gallopavo=, that all of our domestic turkeys have descended. First captured in Mexico by the early settlers of that country, they were taken to the West Indies and there domesticated as early as 1527, for Oviedo, in his "Natural History of the Indias," speaks of the wild turkey having been taken from Mexico to the islands and there being bred in a domestic state. From the West Indies they were taken to Spain, France and England, and again brought back to America as domestic fowls. In 1541 they must have been scarce yet in England, for in an edict promulgated by Cranmer in that year, the "turkey cocke" was named as one of "the greater fowles," and which "an ecclesiastic was to have but one in a dishe." By 1573, however, they must have become quite plentiful, for in that year Tusser mentions them as the most approved "Christmas husbandlie fare."

Inasmuch as there were no settlements of either English, French or Spanish in America north of Mexico until 1584, or in that section of the country inhabited by the eastern species of wild turkey until sixty years after the turkey is known to have been introduced into England, the common belief that the eastern species (=Meleagris sylvestris=) was the foundation of the domestic turkey is clearly an error; but the ornithologist does not find it necessary to consult history to determine the origin of the domestic turkey. That distinguishing feature of the Mexican wild turkey (=Meleagris gallopavo=), the broad, light sub-terminal of the rump feathers, is so strong that even after three and a half centuries of domestication, changes in color through selection in breeding, and possibly crossing to some extent with the eastern and Florida species, those markings, peculiar to it alone, are unmistakably present even in the lightest-colored varieties.

As a game bird the turkey has but few equals. Like most of game birds they are comparatively tame and unsuspicious until after they have been hunted, and learned that of all animals man is their greatest foe and most to be dreaded, for whenever he is within sight he is within the range of his instruments of destruction. I have seen the Mexican wild turkey constantly running or flushing in front of us from morning till night as we traveled through their country for days. They showed but little fear, for while we killed all we could eat, we were constantly traveling, so that those that had been introduced to the white man's methods of destroying were left behind us, and those in front of us had yet the lesson to learn; but when the wild turkey has been hunted a little it becomes about as wary, cunning and resourceful as any bird that flies.

The Mexican wild turkey is the largest of the race, and has been, and is yet, the most plentiful. They are strictly mountain dwellers, not often found in altitudes of less than twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet, and more frequently from four to six thousand, and even up to eight thousand feet or more. They are strictly timber dwellers, usually, if not always, living in the pine forests, for I can not call to mind a single instance where I have found them except where pines of some variety were the principal trees. In size, individuals vary a good deal. So, also, will the general average be found to vary as much as ten pounds in different localities. Generally the higher their habitat the larger the birds, some of the old gobblers reaching forty pounds if not more. I remember killing one in the Sierra Madres of northern Mexico that I carried about three miles into camp over a very rough country. By the time I got him there I was willing to bet my last "silver 'dobe" that he weighed a ton. I have also killed some very large ones in the San Francisco mountains of Arizona.

The wild turkey, like the mountain quail, has an up and down mountain migration. In the early spring the hens begin to work up the mountains and seek the densest jungles, and of course the gobblers follow them. The gobblers are polygamous, and have but little respect for their families. They will not only destroy the nests, but even the young birds. For this reason the hens are very secretive in nesting, taking as much care in hiding them away from the gobblers as from their other enemies. As soon as the hens begin setting the gobblers gather in flocks and remain by themselves until joined in the early fall by the hens and their half-grown broods. After this the flocks soon begin their migration to the lower hills and mountain openings, and congregate into immense roosts. Places were once to be seen where they had filled the trees for acres in such numbers as to break the limbs in many instances. In those times and localities they were too tame and too plentiful to afford much amusement to the man who hunted them for sport, but with the exception of some places in Mexico that day has passed, and the sportsman who hunts these grand game birds now will find a quarry worthy of his skill and affording him sufficient exertion to whet his appetite for the delicious feast they furnish him.

Both the habits and the habitat of the wild turkey make the sport of hunting them especially enjoyable. As soon as the gobblers are deserted by the hens they become more wary, and the crack of a twig or the sight of a man, be he ever so far away, and they at once seek cover. Then the keen eye and the noiseless tread of the still hunter is called upon for his best and most careful efforts, for the eyes of these gobblers are quick to catch the slightest move and their ears acute to the faintest sound. The curiosity of a deer often makes him hesitate long enough for the opportunity of a shot, but the gobbler, after the hens have left him, is no longer lured by curiosity. His business is to keep out of sight, and he can do it, after he has once learned the destructiveness of man, just a little more successfully than any other bird or animal that I have ever hunted.

There are no wild turkeys west of the Colorado river, nor on the peninsula of Lower California; but there can be no reason to doubt that, had the mountains of Arizona connected with the pines of the Coast range in San Bernardino county or with the Sierras of Inyo or Kern, the mountains of California would have been as well supplied with turkey as are its valleys with quail.