Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, 6^c. 425 



permanent race it will be entitled to a distinguishing specific 

 name. Yours &c., Robert Swinhoe. 



Tamsuy, Formosa, April 30th, 1864. 

 About tbe middle of the month^ four Partridges were brought 

 to me from the interior mountains, alive, consisting of three 

 males and one female. They uttered a chuckle very like that of 

 the Guinea-hen {Numida). I tried my best to induce them to 

 live ; but they knocked themselves about, and one after the other 

 succumbed. Besides their peculiar red unspurred legs, thick 

 black bill, and very short tail, the most striking peculiarity was 

 in their all having an ugly raw-looking red patch on the throat. 

 I thought it curious that all the birds should be so injured, if 

 the peculiarity arose from an injury ; but, on examining them 

 closely, I found that the bare throat was natural. I have been 

 puzzling myself as to what genus to assign them, but I know of 

 no group of Partridges to which they can be well referred. They 

 are not Arhoricola, for they are of a different type, and, from their 

 straight claws, certainly non-perching birds. They approach 

 nearest the genus Caccabis ; but from these they diifer in the un- 

 spurred leg, the short tail, and the thick bill. Therefore, though 

 loth to multiply genera, I see no hope of avoiding it in this case ; 

 and, from their being denizens of the interior mountains, I propose 

 to create for them the genus which I will proceed to define. 



Oreoperdix, n. gen. Bill thick and heavy, tending to that of 

 Numida-, nostrils covered in most part by a bulging opercular 

 skin. Legs large; tarse longer than middle toe; claws long, 

 straightish, and blunt ; outer toe longer than innei', both attached 

 by a membrane to the middle toe as far as second joint, and ex- 

 tending in a narrow fringe up greater part of the toe; hind toe on 

 a level with the rest, and attached to the inner toe by a basal web. 

 Wing concave, of moderate length ; 4th and 5th remiges longest. 

 Tail soft and very short, of 14 rectrices. Throat in typical species 

 inflamed (in spring) and much denuded. Sexes of similar 

 plumage; but female much smaller, with thinner and lighter bill 

 and legs. 



VOL. VI. 3 F 



