468 NOVELTIES. 



set over the orifice, forming a noticeable patch, greyish brown ; 

 the crown, occiput, nape, neck all round, the entire mantle, 

 including lesser and median primary and secondary wing- 

 coverts, tertiaries and all their coverts, scapulars and upper 

 tail-coverts, grey, with an olive tinge ; the feathers of the front 

 and sides of the neck, which are the purest grey, and the 

 lowest of which begin to show a tinge of the buff of the 

 breast, with black shaft stripes beginning in the lowest to acquire 

 a diamond shape ; the whole of the feathers of the upper 

 parts fringed at the tips with black, and all but those of the 

 crown, occiput and nape, lesser wing-coverts and tail, closely 

 and narrowly barred, except on the terminal quarter of 

 an inch or so, with black, which barring has a great 

 tendency to become confluent on the inner webs and form 

 large blotches or patches, especially on the scapulars; the 

 extent and frequency of this blotching varies in different 

 individuals. In one or two specimens I have found the olive 

 grey of the tertiaries partly replaced by buff. The tail may 

 be said to be black, narrowly, but not closely, barred with olive 

 grey, varying in different specimens to grey brown, or this 

 with a faint buffy tinge. The winglet, primaries and secon- 

 daries hair brown ; all but the first primary, which has a nar- 

 row marginal band of this color, narrowly barred on more or 

 less of the outer webs with buffy brown. The breast, sides and 

 flanks, very like the same parts in Francolinus pictus, buff, 

 with a black shaft stripe and a black cross bar a quarter of an 

 inch from the end, the two expanding where they cross into 

 a sort of diamond ; these black markings narrower on the 

 breast, broader on the sides and flanks. Abdomen, vent and 

 tibial plumes, all very soft fluffy feathers, grey at the base, 

 pale dull fulvous, obscurely barred with dusky, on the ter- 

 minal portions ; lower tail-coverts black, tipped with white, and 

 most of the feathers with a pair of white spots one on each 

 web, about quarter of an inch above the white tipping, forming 

 together a more or less imperfect transverse bar. The wing 

 lining is a brownish grey. 



The female wants the maroon head markings ; the forehead, 

 superciliary region and cheeks being unicolorous with the crown 

 or nearly so, and the chin and throat being dull albescent greyish. 

 The buff of the breast and sides is paler and duller, and the 

 transverse black bars wanting on many of the feathers ; the 

 white of the lower tail-coverts is to a great extent replaced 

 by dingy buff ; the black tippings to the feathers of the head 

 are less conspicuous, and the black markings of the upper 

 parts are perhaps more often confluent, and show much less of 

 the close regular barring than in the male. Otherwise the 

 sexes do not appear to differ much. 



