TURNICIN &. 317 
“First fine specklings and spottings thickly spread over the 
whole surface of the egg ; second bold blotchings and frecklings ; 
third marblings. 
“In color the markings equally vary, blackish, purplish, olive, 
and burnt sienna, all occur.”—Game Birds of India. 
They measure I'L inches in length by nearly 0°84 in breadth. 
Famity, Tinamide. 
Bill moderate, slender, straight, or slightly curved at tip; 
wings moderate or short ; tail short, occasionally none ; the upper 
tail-coverts lengthened and concealing the tail in many ; tarsi 
unarmed ; lateral toes short, hallux small and elevated, or 
wanting altogether ; claws short and blunt. 
Sus-Faminy, Turnicine. 
Of diminutive size. Three toes in one genus; the hind-toe 
present in another. 
Genus, Turnix. 
Bill slender, of moderate length, straight, much compressed, 
slightly curved at the tip; nostrils linear; wings of moderate 
length, with the first quill longest in some, or the first three 
gently graduated; tail feeble, short, concealed by the upper- 
coverts, of ten or twelve narrow feathers ; tarsus moderate or rather 
short, separated at the base ; no hind-toe. 
Turnix taigoor, Sykes. 
832.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 595; Butler, Guzerat ; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. IV, p. 7; Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. 
IX, p. 424; Game Birds of India, Vol. IJ, p. 169; Swinhoe 
and Barnes, Central India ; Ibis, 1885, p. 182. 
THE INDIAN BUSTARD QUAIL. ‘ 
Length, 544 to 66; expanse, 10°75 to 12:5; wing, 2°85 to 
3°45 ; tail, 0-9 to 1°38; tarsus, 0'9 to 1:2; bill from gape, 06 to 
0°78; weight, 14 to 2} oz. 
Bill dark slaty; irides pale yellow to straw-white ;-legs and 
feet light slaty to plumbeous. 
The females are, as a rule, much the largest. 
The female is rufous above, with transverse black lines on each 
feather of the back, scapulars and rump, these having also 
yellowish-white lateral margins, internally edged with black ; 
the crown of the head rufous, with a series of black and white 
feathers appearing as white spots, set off with black, along the 
median line; another and broader series over each eye; a third 
bordering the throat, which, with the middle of the foreneck to 
the commencement of the breast (together with the more 
conspicuous feathers of the wings), is fulvous-white, with toler- 
ably broad black cross-bars; below the breast, light but bright 
ferruginous. 
