KING QUAIL. 229 
Breeding-season.—August to January. March and April in Central Queensland. 
Incubation-period.—(In captivity) eighteen to twenty days. 
Distribution and forms.—Kastern Asia from China to India and though the 
Philippines, etc., to Eastern Australia. The extra-limital forms have been imper- 
fectly studied and the subspecies are not well known ; four names have been given 
to Australian birds and three subspecies may be easily recognised but the names need 
rearrangement. Gould named the Australian bird as a species and in 1912 Mathews 
selected Queensland as the restricted type locality, but when Witmer Stone studied 
the Gouldian collection in Philadelphia he selected a specimen from South Australia 
as “ the type,’ and Mathews renamed the Queensland form from Cairns. However, 
the type could not be in the Philadelphia collection, as the species was not named 
until 1865, and therefore Mathews’s locality selection must be maintained, especially 
as the Queensland birds agree better in size with Gould’s measurements ; therefore 
we have #. chinensis australis Gould from mid-Queensland, probably to Glencoe, 
Northern Territory (the type locality of Mathews’s #. c. colletti, but which may be 
separable by paler coloration); H. c. cairnse Mathews, from North Queensland, a 
darker form above and below; and Z. c. victorie Mathews from Victoria, New South 
Wales, and South Australia, a larger form, also lighter than preceding and with a 
narrower white band on the throat. A somewhat variable species which will repay 
still further study. 
SuporDER TURNICIFORMES. 
The little Button Quails, superficially like Quails, but without a hind-toe, 
have peculiar internal features, and as these have been misunderstood by anatomists 
they have been removed from the near vicinity of the Galli, to which they un- 
doubtedly belong. The Plain Wanderer resembles these but has retained the hind- 
toe and is regarded as representing a distinct family, especially as internal modifica- 
tions are recorded. It is confined to the south central portion of Australia, whereas 
the Button Quails range from South Europe and North Africa through India to 
Australia, where they are most strongly represented. The skull is very peculiar, 
having the palate of a pattern named xgithognathous, which is otherwise unknown 
in this connection, but here again there can be little doubt that this is a false 
egithognathism, and that it has been produced from a state of schizognathism, 
such as is always seen in the Galli. The nasals are recorded as schizorhinal, but 
it is admitted that this is a pseudo-schizorhiny and is of holorhinal origin. There 
are well-marked basipterygoid processes and the lachrymals fuse with the ecteth- 
moids. There are fifteen cervical vertebre and the sternum shows a pair of long 
postero-lateral processes as in the Galliformes. The carotids are variable, and the 
tracheo-bronchial syrinx is somewhat degenerate ; the digestive system is somewhat 
peculiar, the czca long. The muscle formula is variable, as is also the presence 
of the expansor secundariorum, The oil gland is tufted and the aftershaft present 
and the wing aquincubital or quincubital. The pterylosis is abnormal and the 
downy nestling is typically Galline. 
Famity TURNICID4. 
Until recently all the Button Quails were referred to a single genus, but super- 
ficially they show variation, so that many genera are here admitted ; no investigation 
has yet been made as to the differences in the internal features of the species, but 
in the few species yet examined variation has been noted. Thus, the syrinx shows 
variation in detail, while skeletal items have been recorded and even the leg muscles 
are not constant, the accessory femoro-caudal being present in some cases, though 
generally absent. Other features require comparison. 
