30 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 



sentatives of the Quails of the Old World, from which 

 they differ, however, in several striking particulars. To 

 the last mentioned tribe belongs the bird figured at the 

 head of the present article, one of the most elegant and 

 least known of a very interesting family. 



The Quails of America, the Ortyges of modern sys- 

 tematists, called by M. Temminck and some of the 

 later French writers Colins, are distinguished from the 

 Quails and Partridges of Europe by the greater thick- 

 ness, the comparative brevity, and the more elevated 

 form, of their bills ; and by the greater length of their 

 tails, which are somewhat wedge-shaped and rounded 

 at the extremity. Like the European Quails they are 

 destitute of the tubercles or spurs which are observed 

 on the legs of the male Partridges, and are so remark- 

 ably developed on those of the Francolins. Like them 

 too they frequent thickets and bushes, building their 

 nests on the ground, and migrate during the winter 

 to more temperate regions. They appear to be exceed- 

 ingly pugnacious in their habits, and as they always 

 congregate in numerous flocks, their quarrelsome pro- 

 pensity has full scope for its indulgence. 



The general colour of the upper part of the body 

 and wings in the Califoniian Ortyx is of a dusky 

 brown, assuming a leaden or slaty tinge on the tail, 

 and on the fore part of the breast, upon which it 

 advances in the form of a broad band. The fore part 

 of the head is of a mixed ash gray, and the hinder 

 part blackish brown. From the latter rise five or six 

 black feathers, an inch and a half in length in the 

 male, the barbs of which gradually widen upwards, 

 and are reflected backwards in such a manner that the 

 edges of the two opposite sides nearly meet each other. 

 This crest stands erect for about one half of its length, 

 and the remainder is curved gracefully forwards over 



