424 NOVITATES ZoOLoaiCAE XXIV. 1.917. 



doubtless tell us how he got it, but he evidently did not shoot it, and one cannot 

 but regret the absence of its full history. If it is a South African Quail, it 

 cannot have been wild at Gibraltar ; the same can be said if it should be an aber- 

 rantly dark Madei'ran bird. That it is a hybrid is, in my opinion, absolutely 

 impossible, nor is there any evidence, as it is typically dark and red for africana, 

 not in the least intermediate between the latter and C. c. cohirnix. 



Colonel Irby tells us that Spanish shooters and bird-catchers distinguish 

 between the resident and migratory Quails, and says that he also found them 

 to be different. I have very little confidence in such vague statements of bird- 

 catchers and shooters ; they may have once established such a statement, possibly 

 based on comparison of the breeding birds in spring with autumnal migrants, 

 and then repeated it from generation to generation ; but it is difficult to under- 

 stand that an excellent observer and field-ornithologist like the late Colonel 

 Irby should have omitted to collect specimens to show these differences. Apart 

 from the dark varieties of Valencia (which occur also in Italy and elsewhere, 

 also among cage-birds), there are comparatively many very bright-coloured birds 

 among the half dozen Spanish Quails which I have been able to compare, but 

 a series is nowhere available ; there is, however, no probability that a separate 

 subspecies occurs in Spain, since the birds from North-west Africa do not differ 

 from C. c. coturnix. 



We have now to distinguish the following races of G. coturnix : 



C. coturnix coturnix (L.). 



Europe to Yenisey and Lake Baikal, south to Marocco, Algeria, Tunisia, 

 Egypt, and Persia, also in small numbers nesting in North-west India. 

 Wintering chiefly in Northern Tropical Africa south of the Sahara (south to 

 Gambia and Abyssinia), in Arabia and India. 



? C. coturnix corsicana Tschusi. 



Described from two winter birds, which were smaller and darker. Other 

 Quails from Corsica (Laubmann, Hartert) are typical C. c. coturnix. but they 

 may be migratory birds. Material from the spring and summer months must 

 be compared in order to settle the question of a possible Corsican race. 



C. coturnix confisa Hart. 

 Madeira and Canary Islands. 



C. coturnix inopinata Hart. • 



Cape Verd Islands. 



C. coturnix conturbans Hart. 



Azores. 



C. coturnix africana Temm. and Schleg.* 

 South Africa, in the east north to Uganda ; Madagascar, and Comoro Islands. 



* Called in the Cat. B. Brit. Mus, xxii. C. capensis, but it is now universally known that the 

 earlier name a/ricana had been overlooked, and Mr. Ogilvie-Grant usesit too in hie recent writings, 

 as in 1905 and 1912. 



