218 GALLIFORMES CHAP. 
wash on the wing-coverts and rump. The cheeks, throat, and 
much of the upper and under tail-coverts are crimson, the breast 
is yellow-green with crimson streaks. J. geoffroyi of East Tibet 
and West China has a grey head and throat; J. sinensis of Mon- 
gola and North China is similar, with rufous for green on the 
wing-coverts. Females are grey, brown, and buff. Found in 
flocks of twenty or thirty at altitudes between ten and fourteen 
thousand feet, these bold birds have limited powers of flight, 
great speed of foot, and a weak cackling note; they bury them- 
selves occasionally in the snow, as do certain Grouse (p. 238), 
and feed on grass, insects, berries, and shoots of juniper or pine. 
If a Sub-family Perdicinae be admitted, it may be com- 
menced’ with the little known Ophrysia superciliosa of North- 
West India, a soft-plumaged greyish-brown species with black 
and white markings on the head; next to which comes (a//o- 
perdiz, the Spur-Fowl, with a large bare eye-space, and two or 
three spurs on each foot in the male, reduced to a single pair in 
the female. G. spadicea of India, which has been introduced 
into Madagascar, has a brown crown, and chestnut plumage else- 
where, with grey margins to the feathers, and black vermicula- 
tions on the wing-coverts and rump; the female being mottled 
with black. G. lunulata, another Indian form, has the crown 
black with white streaks, the breast buff with black spots, and 
black-ringed white ocelli on the mantle ; G. bicalearata of Ceylon 
has both mantle and crown black with white stripes, and the 
breast whiter. These birds frequent thick jungles near the 
coast, or hills up to seven thousand feet, and are extremely wild, 
though hard to flush; they resort to trees in emergencies, and 
roost In them at night; the note is a harsh or plaintive whistle ; 
the food consists of grain, insects, and their larvae. Four, five, or 
even ten whitish or buff eggs are deposited on a few dry leaves 
below some sheltering shrub. The cocks are stated to fight as 
viciously as Jungle-Fowl. Bambusicola fytchii, the Bamboo- 
Partridge, found from North-East India to China, has the 
crown and ear-coverts red-brown; the upper parts olive-brown, 
varied in places with black and buff, and longitudinally marked 
with chestnut, except towards the rump; the wing- and tail- 
quills reddish mottled with buff; the superciliary stripe, throat, 
' Mr. Ogilvie Grant begins with Excalphatoria. Cf. Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xxii. 
1893, pp. 94-95. 
