TETRAONID^. * 275 



with tenfold more boldness, and frequently falls a prey to her maternal 

 solicitude. I have at this moment in my aviary a female thu& cap- 

 tured, with two of her brood. I have observed from these birds that 

 the migratory desire is evidently strongest at night. At this season, 

 though perfectly quiescent during the day, my birds fly up and dash 

 themselves against the wires at all hours of the night, particularly 

 during moonlight. This could not have been from any terror, as they 

 were quite tame at the time, feeding from my hand, and scratching 

 on my palm to obtain some desired seed that their little quick eyes 

 discriminated in the mass thus offered to them. Some quails remain 

 with us all the year round. On Robben Island, for instance, ten or 

 twelve brace may be shot any day in the year. Why they should 

 choose this barren spot, eight or ten miles from land, in the mouth 

 of Table Bay, I cannot conceive. The farmers declare that every 

 seven years the numbers of quail exceed those that visit us during 

 the intermediate six. During one of these " years of plenty," I 

 bagged forty brace in one day, and lost many more. 



532. Ooturnix Histrionica, Harti., Kev. et Mag. 



de Zool., 1849, p. 495 ; 0. Delegorquei, Deleg. ; G. 

 Grucigera, Heugl. Uebers, p. 51. 



Above, fuscus cinereous, with black and white transverse 

 markings ; feathers of the back and the wing-coverts 

 marked with longitudinal white patches, bordered and cen- 

 tered with black ; top of head and back of neck brown ; 

 eyebrows, and a little mark on the top of head, white ; a 

 short band between the nostrils and the eye, and others 

 beneath the eyes, black ; throat and fore part of neck white ; 

 the centre spots black, and anchor-shaped ; the greater part 

 of chest black ; belly intense rufous, the larger spots black ; 

 under taii-covers white ; under the wings white ; bill black; 

 legs yellow ; irides yellow. Length, 7" 2'" ; wing, 3" 8'". 



Inhabits Kaffraria, teste Delegorque et Wahlberg. — HartL, loc. cit. 

 ' I think that a specimen of this quail was purchased by the Count de 

 Castelnau in a collection of birds made near Swellendam. I could not 

 obtain a description of it ; but, as far as my memory serves me, the 

 foregoing is not unlike the bird. 



The Sub-Family, TURNICIN^, or Bush-Quails, 



have the bill moderate, straight, and the slides compressed to 

 the tip, which slightly overhangs that of the lower mandible; 

 the nostrils lateral, and placed in a nasal groove, that reaches 

 beyond half the length of the bill, with the opening linear, 

 and protected by a long scale ; the wings rather short, and 

 rounded ; the tail short, and almost concealed by the dorsal 

 feathers ; the tarsi moderate and strong ; the toes usually 

 three in number, long, and free at their baee, the outer toe 

 longer than the inner. 



