30 THE GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL 



ORDER QALLIFORMES. THE GAME BIRDS. 



THE Birds comprising the present order, and popularly known as "Game 

 Birds," constitute a large and important group, but somewhat ill-defined 

 on what may be termed the boundaries. The most simple way of showing their 

 possible affinities is to place them in the centre of a circle, round which must be 

 grouped in varying proximity the Pigeons, the Sand-Grouse, the Plovers, Cuckoos, 

 Bustards, Rails, Cranes, Hemipodes, Touracous, and the Hoactzin. Their sternum 

 contains two very deep notches on each side of the posterior margin: the 

 episternal process is perforated to receive the base of the coracoids. In the 

 modification of their cranial bones they are schizognathous, whilst their nostrils 

 are holorhinal. Amongst their external characters may be mentioned the 

 following. The oil-gland is generally tufted (although nude in the Megapodes, 

 and absent in Argus) ; the hallux or hind-toe is always present, varying, however, 

 in size and position ; the body feathers have well-marked after-shafts. The bill 

 is always comparatively short and stout, curved and wide at the base, the upper 

 mandible overhanging the lower one. The primaries are ten in number; the 

 wings rounded; rectrices variable in number. The young are hatched covered 

 with down, and able to run and feed almost directly they break from the shell. 

 They begin to develop quills soon after they are hatched, and are able to fly in 

 the juvenile stage of their existence, their wing feathers being changed repeatedly, 

 so that by the time they are fully grown they have had three, four, or even five 

 sets of quills. The Game Birds have one complete moult in autumn. Some 

 species have a partial moult in spring; others change their feathers more or less 

 completely several times during the year, and in some cases a change takes place 

 in the colour or pattern of the feather without a moult at all. Perhaps in no 

 other group is the change of plumage more complicated. In no other order do 

 birds exhibit more diversity in their external characters. The great variety and 

 brilliancy of the wattles, combs, and excrescences that adorn the head; the 

 development of spur, the magnificent colour of the plumage, and the wonderful 

 modification of the tail feathers and coverts, all being of exceptional interest. 

 Mr. Ogilvie Grant, a high authority on the present order, includes therein about 

 four hundred species and subspecies of Game Birds. The Galliformes are 

 divisible into at least four fairly well-defined families, and these again into three 

 subfamilies. Two of these families are represented in the British Islands. The 

 Game Birds are cosmopolitan in their distribution, with the exception of the 

 Australian region. 



