194 Allen's naturallst's library. 



with bright chestnut ; chin and throat handsomely marked 

 with black and white ; upper part of the chest, sides, and 

 flanks slaty-blue ; rest of the under-parts rich chestnut. Total 

 length, 5*2 inches; wing, 2-8; tail, i-i ; tarsus, o-8. 



In very old birds the shaft-stripes on the upper-parts entirely 

 disappear, and the whole aspect becomes darker and more 

 uniform; on the under-parts the chestnut gradually takes the 

 place of the slaty-blue colour till very little of the latter remains. 



Younger Males. — The upper-parts are warmer brown, the black 

 markings stronger, the shaft-stripes wider, and the under-parts 

 are mostly slaty-blue, with only a small patch of chestnut on the 

 middle of the belly. 



Adult Female. — Upper-parts like those of the younger male, 

 but the forehead and sides of the head are rufous-buff; the 

 chin and throat white ; and the under-parts buff, barred with 

 black on the chest, sides, and flanks. 



Range. — Ceylon, Indian Peninsula, and the Indo-Chinese 

 countries ; also Formosa, Celebes, Ternate. ? Hainan. 



This extremely beautiful little Quail has a very wide distribu- 

 tion. 



The somewhat darker and more strongly marked sub-species 

 E. li?ieata, described below, is merely a southern representative 

 of this bird, found in many of the larger islands of the Malay 

 Archipelago and Australia, and it is extremely curious that we 

 should find the typical E. chinensis in Celebes and Ternate. 

 The examples collected by Mr. A. R. Wallace in the former 

 island were described as a distinct species {E. minima) by Gould, 

 and were supposed to differ from E. chi?iensis in being smaller, 

 but even this distinction, shght as it is, does not hold good, for 

 many examples from India and the Malay Peninsula are quite 

 as small. 



HalDits. — Mr. Hume remarks : " I have always, except in the 

 autumn, met with this species singly or in pairs. You may at 

 times find a considerable number in the same patch of grass, 

 but they are always as independent of each other as are similar 



