TRANSACTIONS 
OF 
THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
I. On the Quails and Hemipodii of India. By Lieut.-Colonel Witt1am Henry Sykes, 
E.R.S., L.S., GS. & Z.8. 
Communicated April 14, 1835. 
I COULD wish that the amateur naturalist, with his specimen in his hand, might 
always be able to refer it, without much difficulty, to its family, its genus, and its spe- 
cies; but am afraid that, in very many instances, generic characters are not yet suffi- 
ciently exact, clear, defined, and satisfactory, to enable him to do so with the requisite 
ease. In these cases of difficulty, it is probable that there has been an unqualified ge- 
neralization in establishing generic characters from a single specimen which furnished 
the type, or at the most from two or three species. But our rapidly increasing know- 
ledge of the affinities, habits, and organization of animals will very probably enable 
naturalists, at no distant period, to give that precision to generic characters which will 
admit of the object I have contemplated being realized. 
The early ornithologists (and in this they have generally been followed by those of 
more recent date) adopted external characters—form for generic, and plumage for spe- 
cific, distinctions—as the chief guides to arrangement and identity: and in the majority 
of instances, these appreciable data have established legitimate distinctions which a 
subsequent knowledge of habits and organization has confirmed. Of the truth of this, 
Mr. Vigors’s able arrangement of the groups of birds from external organs and form 
bears ample testimony. But still, in my experience, I found external characters not 
altogether sufficient when collating species which were not the types of the genus. I in- 
stance the family of the Tetraonide. It appeared to me that some generalizations were 
too sweeping ; the form and habits of the typical species seemed to be made too sub- 
VOL. 11.—PART I. B 
