Range. - Mexico and southwestern border of the United States.

This blue gray species is 10 inches in length; the feathers on the neck and underparts have narrow dark borders, thus giving the plumage a scaly appearance, from which the birds take their name. They have a small tuft of whitish or buffy feathers on the top of the head. It is especially abundant in the dry arid portions of its range, being found often many miles away from water. Their eggs are laid in a shallow hollow under some small bush or cactus, and number from eight to sixteen; they are creamy white, finely specked with buff or pale brownish. Size 1.25 x .95.

Mountain Partridge. Scaled Partridge.

Reddish buff.

Creamy white.

293a. Chestnut-Bellied Scaled Quail. Cal-Lipepla Squamata Castanogastris

Range. - Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas and and southward into Mexico.

This sub-species is like the last with the addition of a chestnut patch on the belly. Their breeding habits do not vary in any particular way from those of the Scaled Partridge.