The Game Birds 267 



immaculate, and the sexes different in plumage ; the male is five and six tenths 

 inches in length and the female six and seven tenths inches. The curious little 

 Collared Hemipode ( Pedionomus torquatus] of Australia may be briefly described. 

 The male, which is only four and one half inches long, has the top of the head, 

 back, and upper surface mottled with black, brown, and fawn-color, the throat, 

 neck, chest, and flanks dull fawn-color, and the center of the abdomen and the 

 under tail-coverts buffy white. The irides are straw-yellow and the feet greenish 

 yellow. In the female, which has a total length of seven inches, the upper surface 

 is reddish brown, each feather with several transverse crescent-shaped marks 

 in the center, and margined with buff; the crown of the head is reddish brown, 

 speckled with black, while the neck is surrounded by a broad band of white, 

 which is thickly spotted with black. The under surface is buff, the feathers 

 being marked as are those on the upper surface. It inhabits the extensive 

 arid plains of central Australia. 



THE GAME BIRDS 



(Suborder Galli') 



The Game Birds, so called, form a very large and widely distributed group, 

 the members of which are so well known the world over that it is hardly necessary 

 to enter into a lengthy general description. Briefly it may be stated that they 

 are birds with stout, compact bodies, a moderately long neck surmounted by 

 a rather large, rounded head which is provided with a usually stout bill, the 

 upper mandible of which is arched or vaulted and more or less overhangs the 

 lower. The wings are rather short and rounded and are concave and fit closely 

 to the body, while the tail is in general of moderate size, although there are notable 

 exceptions to this, as in certain Quails, which have the tail so small as to be nearly 

 concealed by the tail-coverts, while the other extreme is exhibited among the 

 Pheasants, where it is very greatly elongated. The legs are of moderate length, 

 but are always strong, for these birds are mainly terrestrial and depend much 

 upon the legs for escaping danger; they are all four-toed. 



The suborder Galli is divisible into two groups, the Peristeropodes,or Pigeon- 

 toed fowls, so named from the fact that the hind toe is inserted on the same 

 level as the others, and the Alectoropodes, or Cock-toed fowls, which have the 

 hind toe inserted much above the level of the others, as in the common fowl. 

 The first group comprises the families Megapodida, the Megapodes, or Mound- 

 Builders, and the Cracida, or Curassows and Guans. The Megapodes are con- 

 fined to the Austro-Malayan subregion, and as will be shown more at length, 

 deposit their very large eggs in the sand or in heaps of decaying vegetation, 

 while the Curassows and their allies are found only in Central and South America, 

 and build nests and incubate their eggs in the orthodox manner, though the 

 nest is built in trees and not on the ground, in the manner of all Alectoropodes. 

 In both families the aftershafts of the feathers are always small, and while there 

 are numerous structural characters which separate them, we may only mention 



