218 



GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



the neck look more than freckled. Down each side of the neck 

 the feathers are centred with dark streaks, making two fairly definite 

 lines which coalesce on the neck adjoining the breast ; the feathers of 

 this part seem often to be a richer shade of buff than elsewhere 

 on the plumage. The back, scapulars and inner secondaries are 

 black, mottled and freckled with buff except in the centre of each 

 feather, and with broad subedges of buff in a V-shape. On the 

 secondaries and outer scapulars the markings are bolder, and the 

 black assumes the shape of fairly definite bars. Wing-coverts pale 

 buff with a rufous tint here and there, and with sparse markings in 

 the form of broken bars of black or deep-brown, not numerous enough 

 or regular enough to break the general contrast of these pale-buff 

 feathers with the plumage of the back. Eemainder of wing-quills 

 black, the outermost feather with a faint suggestion only of mottled 

 bars of buff on the inner web, these increasing in extent until the 

 whole of the inner secondaries are mottled black and buff. Eump 

 like the back but less broken with buff, tail mottled black or 

 brown and buff, the mottling decreasing in extent on the outer 

 tail-feathers which are fairly distinctly barred with broken black and 

 buff. Upper breast and edge of flanks buff speckled with black or 

 brown like the neck ; flanks, where covered by wing, mottled with 

 black ; remainder of lower parts pale, sandy-buff, often slightly darker 

 on the under tail-coverts which are sometimes speckled with dark 

 brown. 



Colours of Soft Parts. — Irides yellow, dingy to almost golden, bill 

 like that of the male but paler and often fleshy towards the base of 

 the lower mandible, legs dingy-yellow or straw-colour. 



Measurements.— Wing 13-2 to 14-50 inches (= 338-2 to 368-3 mm.), 

 bill at front 1-50 to 154 (= 38-1 to 39-1 mm.), and from gape 2-2 to 

 2-5 (= 55-8 to (33-5 mm.), tarsus 5-6 (= 142-2 mm.) or over, tail 

 6-5 to 7-25 (= 163-1 to 184-1 mm.). 



The measurements given above for males and females, which are 

 taken from a series of fourteen males and eleven females, all fully 

 adult, would seem to show that the female is very little larger 

 than the male, but this is not really the case, as she is a far heavier 

 and more bulky bird. I have two records of exceptionally heavy 

 cocks, one shot by Mr. Mundy in Dibrugarh, Assam, and another by 



