PERDICID.E — THE PARTRIDGES. 



469 



Young. Head ashy, with a narrow post-ocular white stripe, and the crown spotted 

 with black ; throat whitish. Beneath pale dingy-ashy, with whitish shaft-streaks, and 

 without black bars or other markings. Above reddish or olivaceous drab, the feathers 

 with whitish shaft-streaks, and a large black spot, mostly on upper web. 



Chick. Head dingy buflp; an auricular dusky elongated spot, and a vertical patch of 

 chestnut-rufous, widening on the occiput. 



Length, 10.00; 



4.70 ; tail, 2.85. 



Hab. Eastern United States to the high Central Plains ; Devil's River, Texas ? 



Specimens from Missouri and Southern Illinois are intermediate between 

 the typical virginianus of the Northeastern States and Florida examples,-^ which 

 approach in every resi3ect, except the broad jugular collar, the var. cuhanensis. 

 The size is scarcely greater, — 

 the range in Florida birds be- 

 ing wing 4.10 to 4. .30, wdiile 

 the average of Missouri and 

 Southern Illinois series is 

 about 4.25 ; again, in northern 

 and eastern specimens the wing 

 is 4.70 to 4.80. In colors, 

 Southern Illinois and Florida 

 birds are also very similar ; 

 but in Florida there is less 

 tendency to black blotches on 

 scapulars, etc., while in speci- 

 mens from the southern part of 

 the peninsula the bill is appre- 

 ciably larger. From the plains 

 of Kansas specimens are inter- 

 mediate between these Illinois 

 birds and the var. texanus. 



A pair of Quails from Jamaica, probably derived from Continental 

 parents, are less different from United States specimens than are those from 

 Cuba or Texas. In size they are like the former, and have also an 

 equally large bill ; the male, however, is not darker beneath than Southern 

 specimens of virginiamis, while the female is absolutely undistinguishable 

 in color from examples of that race from the Middle States. 



Habits. The present species, known in New England and in certain 

 other parts of the country as the Quail, and in the JMiddle and Southern 

 States as the Partridge, — either of which names, belonging to other and quite 

 different birds, is inappropriate, — is found throughout the eastern portion of 

 North America from Florida to Maine, and from the Atlantic to Texas on 

 the south and to the Central Plains. Partially successful attempts have been 



Ortyx virginianus. 



1 The Florida bird has been lately characterized as var. floridanus by Dr. Coues, in his Key to 

 North American Birds. 



