390 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIll. 



This sub-species is a considerably bigger bird than the Southern 

 Indian form, females from Ceylon, Java and Siimatra — all much 

 the same in wing measurements — having a wing of o-33" nearly 

 (^85-5mm.), and the male one of 3-05" (=77"5mm.). 



This form being the one first described will bear the name Tiirnix 

 pugnax 2^ugnax (Temm., 1815). 



Of the whole number of specimens of Bustard Quails examined 

 by me during the preparation of this paper, I find there are but 

 three of the British Museum collection which call for special atten- 

 tion. 



The first of these is a bird collected for the Tweeddale Collection 

 and marked Oudh. No particiilar locality in that Province is given 

 and "Oudh" is probably wrong ; the hand-writing in which the 

 locality is written is not the same as that of the other details on the 

 ticket, and the bird is possibly one from the Nepal Terai, N. of 

 Oudh. 



There are also two birds from the Deccan collected by Sykes, one 

 of which is his type of taijoor, and a thi-rd which closely approxi- 

 mates three from Raipur in the Hume collection. The two former 

 are exceptionally dark birds for the Deccan, but they are specimens 

 which had been mounted in the Museum for many years, having 

 been collected in 1863 and 1864, so that it is extremely probable 

 that they have got dark and dull coloured, and have lost much of 

 their red colour. Beds and yellows are the most quickly evaporat- 

 ing of all colour pigments in birds, and remembering this, there 

 do not seem to be sufficient grounds to reconsider the sub-specific 

 value of the colouration of the tipper parts. Typical birds 

 from the Deccan and Baipur are more than usually pale and 

 red-coloured, and the most that could be said of these three birds 

 is that they show a connecting link between taijoor and j^^umhipes, 

 and on the whole they are nearer typical taijoor than tj^pical 

 plumbipes. 



Of course, all four sub-species vary inter se to a considerable 

 extent. Thus we find birds in certain areas in Burmah, such as 

 Pegu, which are paler, more rufous, and also below the average in 

 size when compared with typical dark Burmese specimens. At the 

 same time, when series from varioiis parts of the empire are collected 

 and mi«ed together, there is seldom any difiiculty in sorting them 

 out without reference to their tickets. Southern Indian birds are 

 very remarkably constant in their colouration, and there is no such 

 thing as a skin from South of Madras being similar to one from N.- 

 E. Bengal or Assam. As one works North and East, however, the 

 colour of the upper plumage deepens somewhat, and the birds grow 

 a little larger, so that at the extreme limit of range of each sub- 

 species, specimens may naturally be obtained which are difiicult to 

 define. 



