QUAILS. 205 



by the lack of the white basal line. Its extreme length 

 is about nine and a half inches for the adult male, with 

 an alar extent of from thirteen and a half to fifteen 

 inches. The tail is four and a fourth inches long, and 

 the tarsus one and one-fourth. The bill is black, the 

 eyes are brown, and the feet gray. The general color 

 of the body is a grayish-ash, with plain white abdomen, 

 and a broad white edging on the upper webs of the 

 tertials, the elongated feathers on the sides being of a 

 bright chestnut. 



The male presents more of a leaden or bluish hue than 

 his spouse; the Avhite beneath is strongly tinged with 

 reddish or orange-yellowish; and a black patch is observ- 

 able upon the abdomen. The throat and anterior half 

 of the head are black, deep and glossy, bordered be- 

 hind by two broad, well-defined stripes of white, the 

 upper of which crosses the middle of the vertex, and 

 then follows backward above the auriculars to the occi- 

 put, while the lower begins at the posterior angles of the 

 eyes joining upon or near the vertex. The top and back 

 of the head is of a bright reddish hue, bordered anterior- 

 ly with black. The female may easily be distinguished 

 from the male by her smaller size, being nearly an inch 

 less in length, and lacking the pure white, black, or red 

 about the head, and the black spot upon the abdomen. 

 Her colors, too, are much more cinerous, with little or 

 no bluish cast. Both sexes have the crest, or plume, 

 which adds materially to their elegance and beauty, 

 though that of the female rarely exceeds an inch in 

 length, and the feathers composing it are of a sober 

 brown, and less recurved. This appendage in the male 

 is half an inch, sometimes a full inch, longer than that 

 of the female, of a glossy, jet-black hue, and tends to 

 give him a very jaunty appearance. The crest is freely 

 movable and subject to voluntary control, and though 

 usually carried erect or with a slight backward inclina^ 



