214 Manual of the Game Birds of India. 



Messrs. Hume and Marshall, for instance, 

 figure all three species of Spur-Fowl, but 

 two appear to me depicted with an 

 ordinary tail, while only the third has a 

 tail at all resembling that of the domestic 

 hen. 



Not one of the numerous skins of the 

 Spur-Fowl in the British Museum exhibits 

 even a trace of a folded tail, and I am 

 therefore led to believe that Dr. Jerdon 

 wrote from memory and may have been 

 mistaken. Sportsmen can, however, very 

 easily settle the question for us. 



In the Spur-Fowl, the feathers of the 

 crown are slightly lengthened and form a 

 bushy crest about half an inch in length. 

 The first quill of the wing is shorter than 

 the tenth, and this character separates 

 the Spur-Fowl from all the Partridges, 

 except the Bamboo-Partridge. In the 

 Painted Spur-Fowl a space behind the 

 eye only is bare of feathers ; in the other 

 two species, not only this but also a space 

 in front of the eye is bare. The sexes 

 differ much in colour and the male 

 exceeds the female in size. 



