420 XOVITATES ZOOI.OOICAE XXIV. 1917. 



ON THE FOEMS OF COT URN IX COTURNIX. 



By ERNST HARTERT, I'li.D. 



IN the Cat. B. Brit. Mus. {xxii. pp. 230-2-10) two species and one subspecies 

 of palaearctic Quails were admitted : 



1. Coturnix coturnix : " Europe, Asia (except the south-west corner, Siani, 

 etc.), Africa."' 



2. Subsp. a. Coturnix capensis : " South Africa, south of about 15° S. lat., 

 Mauritius, Madagascar, Comoro Islands, Cape Verd Islands, Canaries, Madeira, 

 and Azores." 



3. Coturnix japonica : " Japan, Manchuria, S.E. Mongolia, and China, 

 as far south as Canton. Specimens have also been obtained in Bhootan and 

 Karen-nee." 



Our friend the author of volume xxii. was at the time satisfied with 

 the results of his study of the genus, for he says : " Perhaps no species of Game 

 Birds has been more confused, and their changes of plumage less understood, 

 than the Common Quail (Coturnix coturnix) and its near ally the Japanese 

 Quail (C. japonica) ; and I am pleased that I have now at last discovered 

 definite and well-marked characters by which both the males and females of 

 these two species may be readily distinguished, while the intermediate forms 

 are, as I shall presently show, undoubtedly the results of interbreeding." Dr. 

 Stejneger has already, long ago, pointed out that he did not show that his 

 supposed hybrids were hybrids, but merely said they were, while, in fact, 

 there was, in our opinion, no reason whatever for this theory. From the dis- 

 tribution admitted for capensis (rectius africana), it is, among others, difficult 

 to understand how Indian Quails could be regarded as the results of hybridisa- 

 tion of C. coturnix coturnix and capensis. It will be seen that, though in the 

 " habitat " the sweeping statement " Africa " is made, not a single skin from 

 that continent, except two from Egypt, was known to be in the British Museum 

 in 1893, when vol. xxii. of the Cat. B. was published. The fact is, that it only 

 breeds in Egypt and in Africa Minor, i.e. in the fertile districts of Marocco, 

 Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli. It passes through the Nile Valley and winters in 

 great numbers in parts of Abyssinia, and has been recorded from the White 

 Nile, Kordofan, and Rcichenow mentions one as obtained by Emin at Mahagi 

 in Uganda. The Quail also passes through the Western Sahara south of Algeria, 

 and must winter in the districts immediately south of the Sahara, but the only 

 western localities on record seem to be as follows : Rendall says that they were 

 common on the Gambia in February and March, but it seems that skins were 

 not preserved. There is, however, a skin of a female in the British Jluseum, 

 which was recorded as ajricana in the Cat. B. p. 238, but it belongs to C. c. coturnix. 

 Shelley and Buckley say that they shot one at Accra, but did not preserve it ! 

 Verreaux gives as locaUty the Casamanze, but before the specimen is re-examined, 

 one cannot be certain about it. Boyd Alexander shot a S near Mafoni (at 

 "Marou"), south-west of Lake Chad in Northern Hausaland, on November 21st, 

 1904, which I have examined. 



As the occurrence of the South African Quail in all these districts is not 



