576 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



type as the true Perdlv of Europe, being without any indication 

 of a tarsal spur. It has been lately shot by several sportsmen, 

 Captain Smythe, Lt. Forbes, and others, who have sent specimens 

 to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta; but I am not aware of its 

 having been killed on this side of the Himalayas, so shall not 

 include it in the ' Birds of India.' I add a brief description. 

 The upper plumage is olive brown, the lower parts buff; it has 

 a good deal of chesnut red on the sides and back of the neck 

 and wings ; the head is red, with white specks, and there is a black 

 line from the forehead round the ear-coverts and throat. A belt 

 of black-edged feathers on the upper part of the belly represents 

 the horse-shoe marks of the English Partridge. Length 13 inches; 

 wing 6 ; tail 3^. 



Perdix cinerea, the English Partridge, has eighteen tail-feathers ; 

 it chiefly affects cultivated lands, and is found over all Europe 

 and Western Asia as far north as Siberia. It always associates 

 in coveys, which in winter occasionally collect into packs of several 

 coveys. 



The African Partridges are very numerous. They form several 

 groups, two of them, Pternestes and Clamator, of great size, and 

 sometimes called Pheasants by colonists at the Cape and elsewhere. 

 Some of these extend into Arabia, and travellers there have also 

 called them Pheasants and Jungle-fowl, Blyth indeed is inclined 

 to consider them ' Pheasants with Partridge tails,' but this I 

 cannot agree to. They are mostly devoid of spurs, but some, 

 called Francolins by Dr. A. Smith, have large and even double 

 spurs, Choctopus and Scleroptila of modern ornithologists. 



AtJi. Wood-partridges. 

 Gen. Aeboricola, Hodgson. 



Syn. Arborophila, Hodgson. 



Char. — Tarsus not spurred ; toes long, with long claws ; tail of 

 twelve feathers, short, of rather soft texture. 



The Hill-partridges or Green-partridges as they are sometimes 

 called, occur throughout the Himalayas, but are found nowhere 

 else in India proper. They extend into the hilly regions of Assam 

 and the Burmese provinces, as far, at all events, as Tenasserim, 



