QUAILS AND HEMIPODII OF INDIA. 3 
and places Bucco and Cuculus in adjoining sections. The Woodpeckers and Parrots are 
in the same order, and removed only a few sections from each other, although having 
only one common characteristic, the arrangement of the toes. 
M. Temminck considers that the form of the wing, whether sharp or rounded, is suffi- 
ciently valid to characterize a genus ; and he gives the following dictum to distinguish 
Quails from Partridges generically. ‘‘ J’indiquerai préalablement le moyen le plus sur 
pour distinguer une caille d’une perdrix. Ce caractére marquant est pris de la forme 
des ailes. Tous les oiseaux qui composent le genre perdix ont les trois rémiges extéri- 
eures les plus courtes et également étagées entre elles, et la quatriéme et cinquiéme les 
plus longues: tandis que chez toutes les espéces qui forment le genre coturnix c’est la 
premiére ou la remige extérieure qui est la plus longue. J’ai trouvé ce caractére inva- 
riable dans toutes les espéces.”! Vieillot similarly says, ‘‘ Les cailles se distinguent 
spécialement de tous les précedens [Colins and Partridges] par la forme des ailes, et de 
la queue.”’? But, in giving characteristics of the family Gallinacei, he says, ‘‘ Tous, a 
lexception des Gangas et de |’Héteroclite, ont le port lourd, les ailes courtes et ar- 
rondies,’’? 
With respect to another distinguishing external character of the Quails, M. Tem- 
minck says that they have “‘ les pieds a tarses lisses, sans éperons ou la moindre apparence 
de tubercule calleux.”4 The males of my specimens, designated by me Cot. Argoondah 
and Cot. Pentah, are furnished with distinct tubercles ; and the varieties of the same 
two species, one variety from the Himalayan mountains, and the other from the neigh- 
bourhood of Madras, equally have them. With the greatest respect for M. Temminck’s 
judgement, I would submit to him that his generic characters separate from Coturnix 
three of the species of Quails described in the following pages; two of them having 
the rounded wing and tubercles of Partridges, but a much higher bill, while the third 
differs only from his Coturnia in the rounded wing: birds, therefore, which all sports- 
men unhesitatingly pronounce to be Quails, would be otherwise designated by naturalists, 
in consequence of variations in characters which do not modify their form or organi- 
zation. 
I doubt whether the true objects of science, and the due extension of natural know- 
ledge amongst the non-scientific part of the community, are likely to be promoted by 
the multiplication of genera consequent on the above distinctions, and less so by the 
multiplication of species, when it is possible to avoid it. I would, therefore, always, 
where it could be done in other genera, as in the case of my Quails, instead of forming 
new genera to meet the deviations from the type, throw the species into sections, 
A, B, C, characterized ‘‘ with rounded wing, and tubercles,” ‘‘ with rounded wing, no 
tubercles,” &c. 
If we look to habits and manners to afford us generic or specific characters, we should 
* Pig. et Gall., tom, iii. p. 461. 2 Gal. des Ois., tom. ii. p. 46. $ Tbid., tom. ii. p. 1. 
* Pig. et Gall., tom. iii. p. 468. 5 In the possession of the Zoological Society. 
B2 
