The Emu 



Official Organ of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union 



Birds of a feather. 



Vol. XXII. I 1st JULY. 1922. [Vm<t 1. 



BufF-breasted Quail {Turnix olivii) 



I5y A. J. CAMPBELL, C.M.Ii.O.U., F.A.O.U., .Mell.ourne. 



Near Cooktown (N.Q.) on 25/6/99, Mr. E. Olive, the well- 

 known field naturalist, obtained a strange Quail, a female.^ The 

 specimen was described as a new species by Mr. H. C. Robin- 

 son, was exhibited by the Hon. Walter Rothschild at a meet- 

 ing of the British Ornithologists' Union, held in London, 

 21/2/1900, and subsequently figured in "Pjirds of Australia" 

 (Mathews), vol. i., pi. 19. 



0\er twenty-one years afterwards (1/11/21) Mr. W. McLen- 

 nan, collecting for Mr. H. L. White on the Cape York Peninsula, 

 "bagged" a male Quail new to him, and a week or two later se- 

 cured the female. The interesting "bag," which proved to be 

 Turnix oUvii, in due course reached Mr. White, who promptly 

 and patriotically decided to figure the i)air in Tlic Emu for the 

 benefit of R.A.O.U. members. 



As usual in the genus Turnix, the female is considerably 

 larger than the male. T. olirii, as Mr. Robertson has pointed 

 out, is most nearly allied to T. castanota, Gould, but differs in 

 its larger size, in having the head not conspicuously spotted with 

 white, and in being without the whitish centres to the feathers of 

 the dark olive-bufi" breast. The technical descriptions are as 



follow : — 



.Idult Male. — Forehead, lores and crown neutral grey, which 

 color extends down nape ; each side of crown and nape mottled 

 black ; ear-coverts mouse grey ; hind-neck auburn ; sides of neck 

 feathers dull white, tipped black; mantle, scapulars and back 

 auburn, some feathers with black bars and margined with white, 

 or pale olive-grey; rump, upper tail-coverts and tail auburn; 

 lesser wing-coverts grey mottled black ; median and greater wing- 

 coverts hazel feathers 'with irregular-sized marks of dull white 

 on black line ; primary-coverts black ; secondaries and primaries 

 chaetura black tipped and edged on outer web with dull white ; 

 chin, throat and malar region pale smoke grey; fore-neck and 

 breast dark olive-buff faintly barred darker (deep olive) ; ab- 

 domen pallid neutral grey; under tail-coverts warm bufif; tibia 

 li'dit neutral grey. "Bill brown, cutting-edge and lower man- 

 diiile bluish white, irides and legs yellow" (W. McLennan). 



