NOVTTATES ZOOLOOICAE XXIV. 1917. 277 



Plateaux here and there in suitable places ; we have traced it as far south as 

 Laghouat. In West Algeria we have not come across any Barbary Partridges, 

 except once on the Djebel Murdjadjo near Oran, where we could not shoot 

 them. (Also in Sardinia !) 



In Algeria and Tunisia, south of the Atlas, A. b. harbara is represented by 

 the very much paler A. b. spatzi. Of Marocco south of the Atlas we have no 

 ornithological knowledge whatever. 



On the islands of Tenerife, Gomera, and Lanzarote a strikingly more greyish 

 form, A. b. koenigi, occurs. 



III. THE FORMS OF THE GREEK PARTRIDGE. 



In the Catalogue of Birds, xxii. (1893), Mr. Ogilvie-Grant was ".satisfied 

 that it is impossible to distinguish more than one subspecies of 0. saxatilis," 

 and he thus had only one in Europe, " Cacmhis saxatilis" and another from 

 Greece to China which he called " Caccabis chukar." Under the latter name 

 he comprises all forms with the lores white and the ear-coverts chestnut, the 

 throat being more or less buff. The distribution is given as follows : 



" 0. saxatilis. Mountains of Europe : Eastern Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians, 

 Apennines, and Balltans, also Sicily. (It is doubtful if this bird is the species 

 found in Greece.) 



" C. chukar. Ranging in the west to the Ionian Islands (and perhaps 

 found on the mainland of Greece), in the east to China, in the north to Mongolia 

 and Turkestan, and in the south to the Persian Gulf and apparently to Aden 

 (C. aremrius Hume). Island of St. Helena (introduced)." 



This supposed distribution requires considerable alteration, apart from the 

 fact that nowadays even Mr. Ogilvie-Grant ^\-ould not lump all the Asiatic 

 forms, i.e. the " c/miar-group." 



First of all we must consider the specific name, and that is graeca, not 

 saxatilis. Dr. Richmond in Washington called my attention to the fact that 

 Meisner, Syst. Verz. der Vog. welche die Schweiz bewohnen, p. 41, 1804, gave the 

 name Perdix graeca to the bird figured on Daubenton's PI. Enl. 231, which must 

 have been a Greek specimen, as Buffon in his text only talks of Greece, the 

 C4reek Islands and Cyprus, and not of the Alps at all, as the habitat of the 

 " Bartavelle ou Perdrix Grecque." Meisner, of course, beUeved that the Swiss 

 birds were the same as those inhabiting Greece, but that was not a very great 

 mistake, as the two forms are very closely allied and have only quite recently 

 been separated. I beheve Othmar Reiser (Ornis Balcanica. iii. pp. 411, 412) 

 was the first to call attention to their difierences ; the fact is that the Alpine 

 bird, which must be called Alectoris graeca saxatilis, is, on the upperside, less 

 brightly coloured, the grey more tinged with yellowsh brown, the interscapulium 

 less reddish, duller, while in A. graeca graeca the upper surface is brighter, the 

 colours purer, the interscapulium more reddish, brighter, the edges to the sca- 

 pulars, rump, and upper tail-coverts purer ash-grey, almost or quite without 

 the dull brownish wash of A. g. saxatilis. 



A. g. saxatilis inhabits the Alpine region from Savoy to Styria, but is absent 

 from the Jura ; probably the birds from the Carpathians (Galicia, Bukowina) 



