NOVITATES ZOOLOaiCAE XXIV. 1917. 423 



Cotumix cotumix confisa subsp. no v. 



Type: S ad. 12. ix. 1903, Ponta de Pargo, Madeira. Received from 

 Padre Schmitz. (In the Tring Museum.) 



In the last group of North Atlantic Isles, the Azores, Quails are also 

 common and resident. 



Now, the Azores birds are, strange to say, almost exactly like the South 

 African C. c. africana, a fact which, in consideration of the enormous distance 

 of their two areas, is most unexpected. There is. however, one difference : the 

 outer aspect of the wings, that is to say, the upper wdng-coverts and inner 

 secondaries are of a more rusty cinnamon-brown tinge, wliile they are darker 

 and generally more olivaceous in C. c. africana. There appears to be no con- 

 stant difTerence in size, though the wngs of twenty specimens measured do 

 not reach beyond 105 mm., while they go to 109 mm. in C. c. africana. I pro- 

 pose to call the Azores Quail : 



Cotumix cotumix conturbans subsp. nov. 



Type : o' ad. Santa Maria, 400 ft., 3. iii. 1903. W. R. Ogilvie-Grant coll. 

 (In the Tring Museum.) 



Last of all, let us consider the distribution of the real C. c. africana. As I 

 have said above, according to Mr. Ogilvie-Grant it inhabits South Africa south 

 of about 15° S. lat., Mauritius, Madagascar, Comoro Islands, Cape Verd Islands, 

 Canaries, ^Madeira, and Azores. I have already discussed the Atlantic Islands, 

 where other subspecies, but not typical africana, are resident. The birds, on 

 the other hand, from the Comoro Isles, Madagascar, and JIauritius are, I am 

 only too glad to agree, indistinguishable from South African ones, though I 

 must say that I have seen only one single bird without history said to be from 

 Mauritius, in the British Museum : there is no proof that it actually came from 

 Mauritius, where it might not be at home at all. Mr. Ogilvie-Grant also 

 enumerates a skin of a female from the Ciambia, but this is, in my opinion, a 

 specimen of the migratory European C. c. cotumix. Moreover, since the Cata- 

 logue of Birds, vol. xxii., was ^vritten, we have some evidence of the extension, 

 in Eastern Africa, north of the Zambesi, while in the west it is not known to 

 occur north of the Cunene River. Tliere are several specimens in the British 

 Museum from Nyassaland. Von Stegniann shot one south of the Kai'issimbi 

 volcano (north of Lake Kivu), and Rudolf Grauer collected one on the foot-hills 

 of the same mountain ; Reichenow mentions a specimen from the Rugege forest ; 

 Crawshai obtained one north-east of Fort Smith, in Kikuvn ; all these latter 

 were single specimens, which seems to show that the bird is rare in all these 

 places, but Dr. van Someren says that near Eiubu and Kyambu in British East 

 Africa it is sometimes common. 



There is also a skin in the Britieh Museum, collected near Gibraltar by the 

 late Colonel Irby. Mr. Ogilvie-Grant called it an " intermediate form between 

 Cotumix cotumix and C. africana," but to me it seems to be a male of the 

 South African africana ; it agrees with the latter in colour, the wing-coverts 

 being very deep brown, but the wng measures about 110 mm., which is very 

 long for africana. It is marked " spring 1872," no exact date being given ; tlie 

 primaries of the left wing are torn out. \\'eie Colonel Irby alive, he could 



