2 28 GALLIFORMES chap. 



;j 



autumn as well as spring,^ are olive-brown or buff, occasionally 

 with small brown spots or a few white shell-markings. |j 



Ammoperdix honhami of South-West Asia is a desert form of 

 an isabelline colour, with blue-grey crown and throat, black fore- 

 head and superciliary stripes, white lores and ear-coverts, a few 

 black markings near the rump, chestnut hues on the tail and 

 flanks, and longitudinal black bars on the latter. A. heyi, 

 ranging from Nubia to the Jordan Valley and the Persian Gulf, 

 has no black on the head, the frontal band being white, and the 

 cheeks and mid-throat chestnut. The rufous and buff females of 

 the two species are indistinguishable. They inhabit wastes and 

 stony ravines up to four thousand feet, in pairs or small coveys ; 

 crouching, to avoid detection, on the ground, which matches their 

 colour ; flying like Quails ; and uttering a reiterated double 

 whistle. The eight to twelve eggs, of a plain drab tint, are 

 deposited among stones or under tussocks, with hardly any nest. 

 Caccabis nifa, the Eed- legged or French Partridge, intro- 

 duced into England from France, and inhabiting Western Europe 

 generally from Belgium and Switzerland to the Balearic Islands, 

 Corsica, Elba, and South Italy, occm-s in the Atlantic Islands, % 

 but not in Africa. The crown is grey, a black band outlines the 

 throat and reaches past the eyes to the forehead, the upper parts 

 are reddish-grey or brownish, and the tail is partly chestnut. The 

 abdomen is bright buft", the chest grey with black margins to 

 the feathers ; chestnut, white, and black stripes adorn the flanks ; 

 the bill, feet, and orbits are red. The male is only distin- 

 guishable by having rudimentary spurs. C. saxatilis, the Greek 

 Partridge, has the chest plain and the flanks without white. 

 It inhabits the Alps, Apennines, Carpathians, Balkans, and 

 Sicilian hills ; the eastern race, C. chukar, ranging from the 

 Ionian Islands to Aden, Persia, Mongolia, and China, and being 

 naturalized in St. Helena. C. magna of Tibet shews a double 

 gorget of black and reddish. C. petrosa, the Barbary Part- 

 ridge, has a chestnut crown and collar, with white spots on the 

 latter; it occupies North-West Africa, Sardinia, several of the 

 Canary Islands, and Gibraltar. C. spatzi of South Tunis differs 

 slightly. C. melanocephala of South-West Arabia has a black 

 crown, bluish upper parts, flanks marked with black and white, 



^ The nest is occasionally in a shrub, Hume, ed. Gates, Kests and Eggs of Indian 

 Birds, iii. 1890, p. 435. 



