Rev. H, B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 213 



the Acclimatization Society ; for it shows no disposition to 

 wander far from its ordinary haunts. 



Of other Perdicina, Coccabis saxatilis is the game-bird of the 

 country. Notwithstanding that it is left in the position of 

 the " unprotected female/' reft of the care of gamekeepers, to 

 the ruthless wooing of every species of Hawk and Falcon, the 

 hillsides of Palestine can yet afford goodly sport ; and he must 

 be a very indifferent sportsman who cannot anywhere secure a 

 plentiful dinner in the course of his morning ramble. I feel' 

 quite satisfied of the distinctness of the Syrian bird from that 

 of Greece, at least as a race. Of the scores which passed 

 through my hands I never met with one which had not the 

 throat more or less rufous, like the Indian Caccabis chukar, while 

 the black gorget below is very much wider than in the Greek or 

 Indian birds. Now the narrowness of this black collar is given, 

 and correctly, as one of the two distinctive marks which sepa- 

 rate Caccabis chukar from C. grceca. But here we have a bird, 

 running rather larger than C. chukar, and even than C. grceca, 

 with the rufous throat of the former, and with the black gorget 

 extending sometimes to more than an inch in diameter, while 

 in the Greek bird it is only a quarter to half an inch, and in the 

 Indian only a very narrow line of about a quarter of an inch. 

 The crown of the head, too, is of a very light ash-colour, instead 

 of deep brown as in the others. Besides, out of a vast series of 

 eggs of the true C. graca collected by Mr. Simpson in Greece 

 and the Dobrudscha, all are very nearly white or cream-colour, 

 and only rarely with the faintest trace of freckles. Of upwards 

 of five hundred eggs collected by us in Palestine, not one at all 

 resembled them. All had the russet ground-colour of the egg 

 of our Bedleg {Caccabis rufa), and most of them were as pro- 

 fusely freckled, though the freckles are generally smaller and 

 finer. The eggs run smaller than those of either our Redleg 

 or the Barbary Partridge {Caccabis petrosa), which latter, 

 though the smallest of the group, lays the largest egg ; whilst 

 the Greek, the largest of all, lays the smallest, I perceive no 

 difference between the Syrian eggs and those of C. chukar, 

 from India. Birds shot by me in Asia Minor and Crete agree 

 with the Syrian instead of the Greek bird. I should propose. 



