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v PHASIANIDAE 225 
flight at starting, and their easy gliding motion afterwards. 
The well-known crowing note is most commonly heard towards 
evening. ‘The nest, a circular cavity lined with grass, is placed 
among short herbage, often near a road, the drab-coloured—or, 
exceptionally, bluish—eggs varying from nine to twenty or 
more in number. Both parents tend the young and employ 
many devices to mislead an intruder; at night the family parties 
roost upon the ground, and later in the year pack into larger 
coveys. The methods of sportsmen and poachers cannot be dis- 
cussed at length in our limited space, but the general adoption 
of driving, instead of shooting over dogs—due to improved 
systems of farming—should not be left unnoticed. 
P. daiirica (barbata), of Asia east of the Altai and Tian-shan 
Ranges, exhibits lanceolate feathers on the sides of the throat, 
like Coturniz japonica, and a black “horse-shoe” mark on the 
golden-buff breast; the latter part in P. hodgsoniae, of South 
Tibet and the extreme north of India, being white with wide 
bars and a large basal patch of black; P. sifanica of North-West 
China and North Tibet lacks the black patch, and has less black 
on the sides of the head and throat. The two last-named birds 
reach the snow-line at about eighteen thousand feet; the first of 
them at least having a nest and eggs like the Common Part- 
ridge. Lhizothera longirostris, of the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, 
and Sumatra, has long sharp curved beak and powerful whitish 
metatarsi, provided with a pair of stout spurs in each sex. The 
upper plumage is rich brown with black and buff markings; a grey 
shade pervades the neck and lower back, and chestnut tints the 
cheeks, throat, and wings; the under parts are grey, merging 
posteriorly into buff. The hen has a chestnut fore-neck, and is 
less grey above. &. dulitensis of Borneo is similar. 
The genus Pternistes contains the naked-throated Ethiopian 
Francolins. P. nudicollis of South Africa is brown above with 
black shaft-stripes, the mantle being greyer, the superciliary 
stripes and face black, the sides of the neck and lower parts 
black with white streaks. The female has a grey and rufous 
chest, the male a pair of sharp spurs. The bare orbits and 
throat are crimson, the bill and feet orange-red. 2. hwm- 
boldti of East Africa and P. afer (rubricollis) of western South 
Africa resemble the above, but have two pairs of spurs. P. 
eranchi differs in having the neck, mantle, and under surface 
VOL. IX Q 
