230 Zoological Society. 



cient for generic characters. Passing to the characters deriveable 

 from the combined consideration of the beak and feet, on which 

 Brisson's system was founded, he remarks on some incongruous 

 associations which were thereby occasioned. Size, the most conve- 

 nient mode (in his estimation) of distinguishing the Quails from the 

 Partridges, cannot, he remarks, be admissible as affording adequate 

 grounds for generic distinction. Habits, also, present many diffi- 

 culties in denning associations into genera ; those assigned by au- 

 thors to an entire group belonging frequently to only one or a few 

 of the species included in it, while in some cases, such as that of 

 the common Quail, the habits differ in different localities ; that bird 

 being in Europe migratory, while in India (and probably in China 

 also) it is stationary : its solitary habits, except at a particular sea- 

 son, are preserved in India, but its evident congener, the Cot. tex- 

 tilis, is never flushed without a second being found within a few 

 paces. Plumage, although in many genera there is an evident ten- 

 dency to assume a particular livery, is evidently unsuitable for ge- 

 neral adoption as affording adequate grounds for generic distinction, 

 however useful it may be in the discrimination of species. 



After passing in rapid review the genera adopted by M. Tem- 

 minck in the family of Tetraonidce, and offering brief remarks on the 

 validity of the several groups, Colonel Sykes proceeds to state that 

 having felt himself disappointed in his attempts to form a just and 

 precise estimate of generic differences from external characters only, 

 he sought in internal organization, in the form of the tongue, and in 

 the colour of the irides for additional guides and evidences of affini- 

 ties or dissimilarities. As regards the former of these, he turned his 

 attention principally to the stomach, the cceca, the proportional length 

 of the cceca to the intestine, and the proportional length of the in- 

 testine to the body. Notes of these several particulars, as observed 

 by him in India in nearly two hundred species of animals, are now 

 in his possession ; from which he extracts and arranges in a tabular 

 form such as relate to the Quails and Hemipodii, and, by way of 

 further illustration, such also as relate to some species of Perdix, 

 Francolinus, Columba, and Pterocles. 



Colonel Sykes then describes in detail the following species, ac- 

 companying his descriptions by observations on their habits, and on 

 such other points connected with them as appear to him to be in- 

 teresting. 



Genus Coturnix. 



1 . Coturnix dactylisonans, Mey. 



2. Coturnix textilis, Temm. 



3. Coturnix erythrorhyncha, Sykes, in Proc. Comm. Sci. Zool. 

 Soc, Part II. p. 153.— (Perdix, Mey.) 



4. Coturnix Argoondah, Sykes, Ibid. — (Perdix, Mey.) 



5. Coturnix Pentah, Sykes, Ibid. — (Perdix, Mey.) 



Genus Hemipodius. 



6. Hemipodius pugnax, Temm. 



7. Hemipodius Taigoor, Sykes, Ibid., p. 155. 



8. Hemipodius Dussumier, Temm. 



