Mr. W. R. Ogilvie-Grant on the Genus Turnix. 457 



specimens inclining to rufous are young birds, and these mostly 

 males. Two quite young males fi'om Klang and a female 

 of the same age from Tavoy have a large amount of rufous 

 buff intermixed with the upper surface plumage, showing 

 that this is a juvenile character and is probably retained 

 longer in the plumage of the males than in the females. 



No sooner do we leave Tenasserim and cross over the 

 Nat-toung Mountains, between the Salween and Sittang 

 Rivers, into Pegu, where the country is comparatively 

 much drier, than the tone of the plumage of the upper 

 surface changes, and we find even adult females with the 

 rufous or *' taigoor " phase more or less developed in a 

 series of specimens from Pegu, Thayetmyo, and Tonghoo, 

 while in four birds from Karennee, obtained by Captain 

 Wardlaw Ramsay in a dry plain near Kyaiphogyee, where 

 the rainfall is small, the upper surface is bright rufous, and 

 one, a nearly adult female, is in every respect similar to 

 the brightest specimens of the " taigoor " from Central and 

 Southern India. Birds from Manipur, Tipperah, and Dib- 

 rughur are all " plumbipes," but in Shillong, where the 

 rainfall is only 68 inches, they incline to rufous. In a 

 large series of specimens from Sikhim, together with a male 

 from Nawakote, the plumage of the upper parts is of the 

 true " plumbipes" type, with the exception of a couple of 

 young males from Sikhim, which have a decidedly rufous tone. 

 All the specimens, both male and female, obtained by 

 Hodgson in Nepal in the valley below Katmandoo, where 

 the rainfall is probably more than 52 inches, are exactly 

 halfway between typical " plumbipes " and " taigoor ^^ while 

 examples from Calcutta (66 inches), Burdwan, and Mudda- 

 pur, &c. (55-60 inches) are nearly of the ordinary '' taigoor ^^ 

 type. Those, again, from Cawnpur (29 inches) and Jhansie 

 (35 inches), Jubbulpur, Khandeish, Cutch, and Raipur are 

 somewhat brighter, and the brightest of all are from Ahmed- 

 nugger, Dopuli on the frontier of S. Konkan, Belgaura, 

 Mysore, Madras, and Coimbatore. Specimens from N.E. 

 Ceylon, where the rainfall is small, are said to be the same 



SER. VI. VOL. I. 2 H 



