THE QUAILS. 189 



of the head, chin, and throat brighter brick-colour or chesUiut, 

 the latter with a black bar on each side ; and the fore-part of 

 the neck is mostly black like the middle of the breast. Total 

 length, 7*6 inches; wing, 4*6 ; tail, i'8 ; tarsus, i. 



Adult Female. — Distinguished from the female of C. pectoralis 

 by having the black bars on the chest- and breast-feathers €07i- 

 fluejit or very nearly so, and the black markings on the rest of 

 the under-parts more numerous. 



Range. — New Zealand. 



This handsome species, once common in New Zealand, was 

 long believed to be nearly, if not quite, extinct; for in 1888 Sir 

 W. Buller remarked that no specimen had been heard of for 

 the last twelve years. He says : " In the early days of the 

 colony it was excessively abundant in all the open country, and 

 especially on the grass-covered downs of the South Island. 

 The first settlers, who carried with them from the old country 

 their traditional love of sport, enjoyed some excellent Quail- 

 shooting for several years ; and it is a matter of local history 

 that Sir D. Munro and Major Richmond, in 1848, shot as many 

 as forty-three brace in the course of a single day within a few 

 miles of what is now the city of Nelson, while a Canterbury 

 writer has recorded that ' in the early days, on the plains near 

 Selwyn, a bag of twenty brace of Quail was not looked upon as 

 extraordinary sport for a day's shooting.' " 



" It may be interesting to mention, as showing the value 

 attaching to extinct or rapidly-expiring forms, that a skin of this 

 bird (and that, too, a female) sent from the Canterbury Museum 

 to Italy fetched as much as ^75." The disappearance of this 

 bird is no doubt largely due to the bush fires employed in 

 clearing the Sheep-runs, as well as to the introduction of Dogs, 

 Cats, and Rats. 



It has since been ascertained that a few bevies still exist on 

 the Kermadec Islands, but no doubt these will soon be exter- 

 minated for the sake of their market value. 



