GREY PARTRIDGE. 219 



form, nor gaudily attired, its neatness, and the curiously intri- 

 cate markings of its plumage, entitle it to be considered as a 

 beautiful bird, and its use as an article of food recommends it 

 in an economical point of view. Ornithologically considered, 

 it presents a marked affinity to the Ptarmigans, and in parti- 

 cular to the Brown species, or " Red Grouse." 



Male. — The Grey Partridge is proportioned pretty much 

 like the bird just named, having the body full, the neck short, 

 the head small and oblong, the wings and tail very short, and 

 the feet short and rather strong. Its bill is short and stout ; 

 the upper mandible with its outline considerably curved, its 

 sharp edges overlapping, and its rounded but thin-edged tip 

 extending beyond that of the lower mandible. The salivary 

 or mucous glandules below the tongue are very large and dis- 

 tinct ; the tongue seven and a half twelfths of an inch long, 

 triangular, pointed, flat above, emarginate and papillate at the 

 base. The space on either side of the palatal slit is marked 

 with transverse papillate ridges. The oesophagus, measured 

 from the fauces to the stomach, is six and a half inches long, 

 its diameter four twelfths as far as the crop, which is globular, 

 two inches and three fourths in diameter, membranous, but 

 with very numerous mucous crypts around its aperture, which 

 is eight twelfths long, and four and a half inches from the 

 tongue. The oesophagus then contracts to three twelfths, and 

 in its intrathoracic course has its inner coat slightly raised into 

 longitudinal rugae, and abundantly covered with mucus from 

 its glandules. The prove ntriculus is elliptical, three fourths of 

 an inch long, and having large ovato-oblong slightly lobulated 

 glandules. The gizzard is obliquely transverse, sub-elliptical, 

 compressed, its greatest diameter an inch and eight twelfths, 

 its left muscle much larger than the right, the former eight 

 twelfths in thickness, the latter seven twelfths, so that the 

 cavity of the organ is reduced to a small cylindrical space, lined 

 with the rather thin, but very tough longitudinally rugous epi- 

 thelium. The intestine, from the pylorus to its extremity, is 

 twenty-seven inches long. Its duodenal portion varies in 

 diameter from five twelfths to half an inch ; the rest gradually 



