AVES 299 



THE FOWL-LIKE BIRDS (GALLIFORMES) 



This order is a large and cosmopolitan one and is divided into four 

 sub-orders, three of which are small and the other contains all of the 

 numerous types of game birds. 



The Magagascar mesite is the sole representative of the first 

 sub-order (Mescenatides). It is decidedly aberrant, having a head and 

 bill more like that of a rail than like that of a game bird. So anoma- 

 lous is this bird that various authorities have classed it respectively 

 with the rails, with the cranes, and even with the song-birds. 



The Hemipodes or bustard quails (Turnices), representing the 

 second sub-order, are in outward appearance not unlike small quails or 

 partridges, but differ so fundamentally from the latter in skeletal 

 structure that they are placed in a separate division. 



The Gallinaceous game birds (Galli) comprise a large assem- 

 blage of more or less familiar types, most of which need no descrip- 

 tion. Apart from the game birds proper the Galli include two families 

 of unfamiliar birds, represented by the brush turkeys (Megapodes), 

 of Australia and New Guinea, and the curassows and guans (Cracidce) 

 of tropical America. 



The true Gallinaceous game birds consist of wild turkeys, guinea- 

 fowls, grouse, partridges, quails, ptarmigans, prairie-hens, bob- 

 whites, pheasants, jungle-fowls and pea-fowls. The most highly 

 specialized types of Galli are characterized by most gorgeous plumage, 

 notable example being the males of the golden and Lady Amherst 

 pheasants, which are native to South China and Eastern Thibet. 

 As described by Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, the male of the golden pheasant 

 has the top of the head, crest and rump brilliant golden yellow, the 

 square-tipped feathers of the back and neck brilliant orange, tipped 

 and banded with steel blue, while the throat and sides of the head are 

 pale rust color, the shoulders and remainder of the under parts crim- 

 son-scarlet, and the middle tail feathers black with rounded spots of 

 pale brown; the tail is twenty-seven out of a total length of forty 

 inches. If, as we have maintained, extravagance of coloration is one 

 of the criteria of racial senescence, this is one of the most senescent of 

 the birds. The pea-fowls are almost as wonderfully colored as the 

 finest of the pheasants, but they are too familiar to require de- 

 scription. Their native home is in oriental countries, but they have 

 been domesticated and widely distributed by man. 



