(Oreortyx pictus)
The mountain quails are the largest and most beautiful of all the
American quails, though the least hunted and the least gamy. There is
but one genus, with one species and two subspecies. Two of these
inhabit the mountains of California and Oregon, and the third, the
high ranges of the peninsula of Lower California. While most of the
sportsmen of the Pacific Coast are conversant with the general
character and coloration of the mountain quail, I believe but few of
them have ever seen the more beautiful species that inhabit the San
Pedro Martir mountains of Lower California.
The present species, given the English name of mountain partridge, by
the ornithologists, and which he has taken for his type, is a small
race found only on the Coast Range from the Bay of San Francisco north
into Oregon, and, therefore, never reaches the high altitudes reached
by its near relatives, the =Oreortyx pictus plumiferus=, to which the
English name, plumed partridge, has been given. In fact, both of these
varieties are plumed, though that of the latter is a trifle the
longer. The fact that the plumed quail ascends the mountains each
spring to heights of from five to eight thousand feet for nesting
purposes, gives it a better claim to the name, mountain, than has the
other variety.
The present species, the mountain quail, is generally found in the
canyons and on the damp hill-sides where ferns are abundant. They have
very little of the migratory habits of the other species, except when
driven down in the winter by the snows. Their habits and general plan
of coloration are so much like those of the other two species that I
shall describe them all together, with the proper mention of wherein
they differ.