FRANCOLIN 291 
to be eaten—shewing that its domestication was accomplished 
when they were written. The bird is not mentioned in the Old 
Testament nor by Homer, though he has ‘AXéxrwp (Cock) as the 
name of a man, nor is it figured on ancient Egyptian monuments. 
Pindar mentions it, and Aristophanes calls it the Persian bird, thus 
indicating it to have been introduced to Greece through Persia, 
and it is figured on Babylonian cylinders between the 6th and 7th 
centuries B.C. It is sculptured on the Lycian marbles in the 
British Museum (circa 600 B.c.), and Blyth remarks (bis, 1867, 
p. 157) that it is there represented with the appearance of a true 
Jungle-Fowl, for none of the wild Galli: have the upright bearing of 
the tame breeds, but carry their tail in a drooping position. 
FRANCOLIN, from the French, and that, says Littré, from the 
Italian Francolino, which others think is cognate with the Portuguese 
Frango or Frangiio, a cockerel; but according to Olina,! in 1622 
(Uccelliera, p. 33), whose opinion is confirmed by Count T. Salvadori in 
1887 (Elenco Uce. Ital. p. 198), signifying, as Willughby’s translator 
indeed has it (Ornithol. ed. Angl. p. 174), a “Free Fowl”, because 
princes granted it freedom of living, common people being for- 
bidden to take it. This explanation, had not the accomplished 
Italian author last named given his adhesion to it, might be justly 
set aside ; but he has suggested that the species was not improbably 
introduced in the time of the Crusades from Cyprus into Sicily, an 
opinion not shared by Prof. Giglioli (Avifaun. Ital. p. 515). How- 
ever this may be matters little now, for by all accounts, as first 
shewn by Lord Lilford (Jdis, 1862, pp. 352-356), the species is, 
and has been for some time past, extinct in every part of Italy, 
though the cause of its extinction may be inexplicable. The word 
Francolin seems to have been first used as English in 1757 by 
Edwards (Glean. N. H. i. p. 75, pl. 246), who figured a male from 
Cyprus. The species is the Tetrao francolinus of Linneus, and 
- Francolinus vulgaris of Stephens. The evidence adduced by Lord 
Lilford shews that it was once numerous in Spain, and in Barbary, 
from Tangier to Tunis, as well as in Sardinia, Sicily, Italy, and 
Greece, but its most western limit must now be Cyprus, and even 
there, he thinks (Jbis, 1889, p. 335), it is probably “doomed to 
extinction.” Mr. Danford also states (Dresser, B. Hur. vii. p. 124) that 
it seems “to be fast disappearing in Asia Minor.” It, however, 
ranges thence through Armenia, Persia, and Beluchistan to 
Northern India, where it is well known to the English as the 
“ Black Partridge,” from the colour of the throat and breast of the 
cock. In Southern India it is replaced by an allied species, 
1 His words are: “Credesi con l’allusione alla franchezza de viuer, che ha 
rispetto alle bandite, e rigorosi editti, che per conto di quello da Prencipi si 
fanno,”” 
