Game Birds and Game Fishes of the Pacific Coast

by Harry Thom Payne

It is well to state here also, that ornithologists do not always agree in the classification and nomenclature of birds. One claiming that a certain species or genus should be separated, while others insist that there is no reason for such separation. With the one exception of the California valley quail, I have followed the plan of the American Ornithologists' Union. In this exception I have followed such good authorities as Bonapart, Elliott, Ridgeway and Gambel, and given the California valley quail the generic name of Lophortyx, instead of classing them with the Callipepla, to which belong the scaled quail, a species with no distinction between the sexes.

THE QUAIL

While the eastern half of the continent has but one genus of quail, the Pacific Coast, including Mexico, is well supplied with five genera and eighteen species, to which may be added four subspecies. Nine species of the genus, Colinus, however, and two of the genus, Callipepla, do not come into the United States.

Properly speaking we have no quail in America, all of our so-called quail being partridges, but the use of the word "quail" has become so common that these birds will, in all probability, be known as quail for all time. But whatever the name, they are resourceful beyond comparison, and gamy to the fullest degree; affording with dog and gun the most enjoyable of all out-door sport.

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MOUNTAIN QUAIL (Oreortyx pictus)	PLUMED QUAIL (Oreortyx pictus plumiferus)

THE MOUNTAIN QUAIL

(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.