FRANCOLIN 291 



to be eaten — shewing that its domestication was accomplished 

 when they were A^ritten. The bird is not mentioned in the Old 

 Testament nor by Homer, though he has 'AAeKTwp (Cock) as the 

 name of a man, nor is it figured on ancient Egyptian monuments. 

 Pindar mentions it, and Ai'istophanes calls it the Persian bird, thus 

 indicating it to have been introduced to Greece through Persia, 

 and it is figured on Babylonian cylinders between the 6th and 7th 

 centuries B.C. It is sculptured on the Lycian marbles in the 

 British Museum {circa 600 B.C.), and Blyth remarks {Ibis, 1867, 

 p. 157) that it is there represented with the appearance of a true 

 Jungle-Fowl, for none of the wild Galli have the upright bearing of 

 the tame breeds, but carry their tail in a drooping position. 



FRANCOLIN, from the French, and that, says Littr6, from the 

 Italian Francolino, which others think is cognate with the Portuguese 

 Frango or Frangao, a cockerel; but according to Olina,^ in 1622 

 {Uccelliera, p. 33), whose opinion is confirmed by Count T. Salvadori in 

 1887 {Elenco Ucc. Ital. p. 198), signifying, as Willughby's translator 

 indeed has it {Ornithol. ed. Angl. p. 174), a "Free Fowl", because 

 princes granted it freedom of living, common people being for- 

 bidden to take it. This explanation, had not the accomplished 

 Italian author last named given his adhesion to it, might be justly 

 set aside ; but he has suggested that the species was not improbably 

 introduced in the time of the Crusades from Cyprus into Sicily, an 

 oj)inion not shared by Prof. Giglioli {Avifaun. Ital. p. 515). How- 

 ever this may be matters little now, for by all accounts, as first > 

 shewn. by Lord Lilford {Ibis, 1869, pp. 352-356), the species is, fj-^^^'^^f 

 and has been for some time past, extinct in every part of Italy, ' 

 though the cause of its extinction may be inexplicable. The word 

 Francolin seems to have been first used as English in 1757 by 

 Edwards {Glean. N. H. i. p. 75, pi. 246), who figured a male from 

 Cyprus. The species is the Tetrao francolinus of Linnaeus, and 

 Francolinus vulgaris of Stephens. The evidence adduced by Lord 

 Lilford shews that it was once numerous in Spain, and in Barbary, 

 fi-om Tangier to Tunis, as well as in Sardinia, Sicily, Italy, and 

 Greece, but its most western limit must now be Cyprus, and even 

 there, he thinks {Ibis, 1889, p. 335), it is probably "doomed to 

 extinction." Mr. Danford also states (Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. 1 24) that 

 it seems " to be fast disappearing in Asia Minor." It, however, 

 ranges thence through Armenia, Persia, and Beluchistan to 

 Northern India, where it is well known to the English as the 

 " Black Partridge," from the colour of the throat and breast of the 

 cock. In Southern India it is replaced by an allied species, 



■^ His words are : " Credesi con I'allusione alia franchezza de viiier, che lia 

 rispetto alle bandite, e rigorosi editti, che per couto di quelle da Prencipi si 

 fanno. " 



