762 TURN IX TAIGOOR. 



1 Coturnix coromandelica, Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 131 (1851, nee Gmelin). 



Turnix ocellatus (Scop., var. taigoor, Sykes), apud Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, 

 xiv. p. 107. 



Turnix taigoor (Sykes), Jerdon, B. of Ind. iii. p. 595 (1864); Blyth, Ibis, 1867, p. 161 (in 

 part); Beavan, Ibis, 1868, p. 386; Holdsw. P. Z. S.. 1872, p. 470; Ball, Str. Feath. 

 1874, p. 428 ; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 26, et 1875, p. 400 ; Butler & Hume, Str. Feath. 

 1876, p. 7 ; Fairbank, t. e. p. 62 ; Butler, ibid. 1877, p. 231 ; Davidson & Wender, 

 ibid. 1878, vii. p. 87 ; Ball, t. c. p. 226 ; Hume, ibid. 1879 (List Ind. B.), p. 111. 



Turnix pugnax, Hume, Nests and Eggs, iii. p. 553 (1875); id. Str. Feath. 1875, p. 178; 

 Fairbank, ibid. 1S77, p. 409. 



% The Indian Quail, Kelaart; The Button-Quail, Bush-Quail, Black Quail, of Sportsmen. 

 Qulu and Gundlu, Hind, in the south ; Salui gimdru, Hind, in N.W. Provinces ; Puredi, 

 lit. " the bold one " (female) ; Koladu, lit. " no spirit " (male), Telugu ; Kurung-Jcadeh 

 (female), An-kadeh (male), Tamil (Jerdon) ; Kddai, Ceylonese Tamils. 



Watuwa, Panduru-xvatuwa, Bola-watuwa, Sinhalese. 



Adult male. Length 5-8 to 6 - inches ; wing 3-0 to 3-1 ; tail 0'8 to 1-0 ; tarsus 0-95 ; middle toe and claw 0-8 ; bill 

 to gape 0-67. 



Iris white ; bill light leaden, dusky brown on culruen ; legs and feet pale bluish or fleshy grey, with the joints and 

 tarsus washed witli bluish. 



Head and upper surface rufous, with a brownish wash on the former ; the feathers of the crown with whitish tips, 

 those on the hind neck with white bars, edged with black ; back, scapulars, and tertials with wavy cross bars and 

 pencillings of black, mauy of the back-feathers and the scapulars with broad lateral white stripes ; wing-coverts 

 with broad buff-white bauds and bars of black ; quills brown, the outer primaries with yellowish-white edges, and 

 the secondaries with indentations of the same on the outer webs ; throat, fore neck, and chest white, more or less 

 tinged with buff, narrowly barred on the chin and throat and broadly barred on the chest with black ; breast, 

 belly, and under tail-coverts light rufous, palest on the abdomen. 



Female. Length G'3 to 6-5 inches ; wing 3-4 to 3'55 ; tarsus 1-0 ; middle toe and claw 0-82 ; bill to gape 0*7. 



Iris white, in some with a yellowish hue. 



Head browner than in the male, with black spots and bars anterior to the white tips ; back more handsomely barred 

 with black, and with the longitudinal buff stripes bolder; wing-coverts and outer webs of the tertials with more 

 of the buff-white ground, and very boldly barred with black ; secondaries blackish brown except at the tips, which 

 are pale ; tertials rufous, marked with black and buff on the outer webs ; chin, throat, and down the centre of the 

 fore neck and chest uniform black; sides of the chest with broader black bars than the male; lower parts deeper 

 rufous. 



Young. Birds of the year are not so conspicuously marked as adults ; the females have the throat barred with black, 

 and the males indistinctly marked with the same ; abdomen and under tail-coverts pale rufescent. 



06s. As on the mainland, so in Ceylon this species is subject to considerable variation in plumage. Specimens from 

 the south and from the damp portions of the west of the island have the rufous of the underparts much deeper 

 than north-country birds, which latter correspond tolerably with examples from India. Two skins in the national 

 collection from India have the abdomen and under tail-coverts pale yellowish ferruginous, and the middle of the 

 breast fulvescent ; and these, I apprehend (for I have not had the advantage of looking over a large series), repre- 

 sent the extreme pale coloration in this species. They measure in the wing 3'3 and 3*4 inches, and are both 

 females. 



Two species are at present recognized in India as belonging to this type of Bustard-Quail — the present and the allied 

 Malaccan, Burmese, and Himalayan form, T. plumbipes, Hodgson, apud Hume. This latter is, in fact, the species 

 styled by Jerdon "The Hill Bustard-Quail," which he places under the head of T. ocellatus, Scopoli, and which follows 

 his article on the present species in the 'Birds of India.' They are closely allied, and, according to Mr. Hume, 



