Colinus virginianus
Order Galliformes
Family Odontophoridae
Other names: Quail
♂ Adult male.— Line over eye white, bordered above and below with black; top of head reddish-brown, mixed with black; back of neck reddish-brown, mixed with white; back and wings chiefly reddish-brown; tail gray; throat white; band across upper breast black; breast and belly white, barred with black; sides heavily washed with reddish-brown.
♀ Adult female.— Similar, but throat and line over eye buff; little or no black on the breast.
Nest, on the ground, in meadows or grain-fields.
Eggs, white usually more or less stained with light brown.
The Quail is a permanent resident of the Transition Zone, common in southern New England and the lower Hudson Valley, but rare or absent from the upland of western Massachusetts, and north of that State found only in the valleys where the winters are not severe. It frequents scrubby growth, where bushes alternate with small trees, especially in the neighborhood of farming country. Here the male may be heard from May to August, whistling his vigorous Bob-White, or oh-Bob-White. When singing, the male is often perched on a fence, wall, or limb of a tree, and an answer may bring him flying angrily up. Later in the summer and all through the fall a covey of birds, if scattered, call to each other by a note like the syllable quoit, suggesting a note of the guinea hen.
Quail tracks may often be seen in the snow; they are smaller than those of the Grouse, or Partridge, occur in more open country, and are generally more numerous, the Grouse being in winter a more solitary bird. When the Quail is startled, it flies with great speed, and then scales with wings bent downward in a sharp curve. The small size should distinguish a Quail from a Grouse when flying; the latter, moreover, is not so richly colored, and has a much broader, fan-shaped tail, tipped with black.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)