COTUENIX CHINENSIS. 757 



Plumage wanting the blue and maroon colours. General character of the upper surface ferruginous brown, handsomely 

 blotched on the back and rump with black, and also cross-rayed with the same ; the crown is chiefly black, the 

 feathers edged with rufous-brown ; down the centre is a conspicuous whitish stripe, tinged with rufescent in 

 some, and the feathers of the upper surface, together with those of the scapulars, some of the tertials, and 

 innermost greater wing-coverts, have a bold pale central stripe, most conspicuous on the rump. 



Forehead, above the eye, face, chin, and throat pale rufous-brown, with a black-dotted stripe from the gape to the ear- 

 coverts, which are greyish ; chest, upper breast, and flanks barred with black on a light rufescent ground, which 

 pales to whitish, unmarked on the lower breast and abdomen ; thighs and under tail-coverts barred with black. 



Birds ivhich are apparently immature are characterized by the rufescent character of the stria? and ground-colour of 

 the under surface. In some the chin is almost white. 



Obs. I regret to say that I did not succeed in procuring any nestlings of this species; and I am therefore unable to 

 supply those details as to young plumage and subsequent changes which I find wanting in previous descriptions 

 of this interesting and variable little bird. It is, I think, not unreasonable to conjecture that the male and female 

 are alike in the first stage. 



An examination of a series from India, China, the Philippines, the Malay Archipelago, and Australia will demonstrate 

 that this Quail is subject to much local variation, chiefly consisting in the greater or less amount of blue on the 

 wings and back of the male, as also in the extent to which the black markings of the back monopolize that part, 

 which latter characteristic must be looked for chiefly in the male. The absence or not of the occipital stripe, and 

 the amount of striation on the back and of red on the wing, I take to be caused by age as much in birds from other 

 parts as I have found to be the case in Ceylon, with this reservation, that in India the stripe on the head seems to be 

 normally more pronounced than in birds from other parts. Birds which I take to be not fully-aged males from 

 China (" Takow " and " China") agree, however, with some from India in having the stripe much pronounced. 



Sarawak, Malaccan, and South-Australian examples (males) are characterized by a large amount of blue on the upper 

 surface, and the females by having the lower back much overspread with black, and seem, at first sight, to be 

 quite different birds ; but on closer examination the coloration is merely an exaggeration of what exists in our 

 birds. 



Female. "Wing 4 - 3 to 4*4 inches. Has the chest less tinged with rufous than the male, and the stripes on the side 

 of the neck and the throat-band absent ; the former are present as a series of spots only. 



Young. The chick is rufous-buff above, with two broad black stripes over the head and one down the back, and an 

 irregular stripe along the back at each side ; wings striped with black. 



Distribution. — Mr. Bligh, my valued correspondent from the Central Province, writes to me of the supposed 

 occurrence, in the Tala district, of the Common Quail. In January (1879) last he met with a pair of large Quails which 

 were flushed from beneath his feet, and flew away strongly, uttering a chirping note similar to that of the species in 

 question ; but being in pursuit of large game at the time, he was unfortunately (for science at least) unable to fire, and 

 he does not therefore consider his identification satisfactory. In point of fact these birds may have been the little Quail- 

 Partridge, Perdicula asiatica, already treated of, or they may have been the Rain-Quail of India, C. coromandelica, which 

 was included, on what authority we know not, in Kelaart's catalogue. The former is common in the Eastern Province, 

 and the latter may have, on equal grounds with the Common Quail, journeyed southwards to Ceylon during the migratory 

 season. Both are, however, only slightly smaller than the Bush-Quail (Turnix taigoor), which Mr. Bligh well knows, 

 and numbers of which he met with on the trip in question about Tala ; whereas he writes me that these new birds were 

 much in excess of that species. It is therefore not unlikely that, after all, his surmise may be correct, and doubtless on 

 some future occasion the Common Quail will be satisfactorily identified from Ceylon. 



It is a cold-weather visitant to India, being found throughout the empire in suitable localities during the winter 

 months ; but many pairs are said to remain to breed in the northern parts of the country. It does not appear to pass 

 to the east of the Bay of Bengal, although it is an inhabitant of China in winter and summer, and a resident, according 

 to Swinhoe, in Formosa. To these eastern regions of the continent, however, it finds its way from Southern Siberia, across 

 which it extends in summer from Western Asia, reaching even the distant islands of Japan. In elevated regions on the 



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