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SYRRHAPTES, 417 
the summer, autumn, and winter plumages being successively assumed 
without any apparent interval between them. 
The external characters of the Game Birds are very varied. Among the 
species in this family may be found birds of the most brilliant colours, and 
their heads are often adorned with caruncles, wattles, combs, and warty 
excrescences of the brightest tints. The hind toe is often small, some- 
times absent, and when present always elevated above the plane of the 
others, whilst the toes are connected at the base by amembrane. The 
wings are generally very rounded and composed of ten primaries; but the 
tail is very variable in form, length, and number of feathers. The bill is 
short, curved, and wide at the base. ‘The true Game Birds may be divided 
into several groups, respecting the importance of which authorities differ 
in opinion. Some of these have been raised by various ornithologists to the 
rank of orders ; others are constituted as families and subfamilies ; whilst 
ornithologists who take a broad view of the subject treat them as genera. 
Of these, the Peacocks are only known in the British Islands in a domes- 
ticated state ; the Pheasants are represented by at least one species, whose 
importation into this country dates so far back that it is now regarded as 
an indigenous bird; the Guinea-fowls and Turkeys are only represented in 
our farmyards ; the Partridges are indigenous to our islands, as are also 
the Grouse ; but the Sand-Grouse can only claim to be British in conse- 
quence of the accidental appearance of numerous examples of one species 
which have visited our islands. 
The young of Game Birds differ from the young of all the other birds 
hitherto mentioned in this volume in being born covered with down, able 
to see, and in a few hours to run and search for their own food. 
There are about 270 species of Game Birds, which are distributed over 
the whole world with the exception cf the Australian Region and South 
America, where they are represented by a somewhat nearly allied family, 
which differs in having the hind toe on the same plane as the others. 
Eighteen species are European, and three others occasionally occur in 
Europe; of these, nine species are British, and one has visited our 
Islands. 
Genus SYRRHAPTES. 
The Sand-Grouse were included by Linnzeus in his genus Tetrao; but in 
1811 the genus Syrrhaptes was established for their reception by Llliger, in 
his ‘Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium’ (p. 243). Pallas’s 
Sand-Grouse beimg the only species mentioned by him, becomes of 
necessity the type. 
VOL. II. 2E 
