410 



BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Starna Bonaparte, Geogr. and Comp. List, 1838, 43. (Type, by monotypy, Pcrdix 



cinerea Latham = Tetrao perdix Linnaeus. ) 

 Sacfa Hodgson, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, xxv, 1857, 165. (Type, by monotypy, 



S. hctdgsoniae Hodgson.) 



Medium-sized Perdicinae (wing about 139-158 mm.) with 16-18 rec- 

 trices, outermost primary shorter than seventh, tarsus without rudimentary 

 spurs, and upper parts conspicuously variegated. 



Bill moderate in relative size, rather slender, its depth at base of cul- 

 men (anterior end of mesorhinium) equal to very much less (approxi- 

 mately two-thirds) the distance from anterior margin of nasal fossa, to 

 tip of maxilla and equal to or greater than its width at same point; cuhnen 



Figure 24. — Perdix perdix. 



moderately but regularly convex, rounded or very indistinctly obtusely 

 angular in transverse section, the tip of maxilla produced much beyond 

 tip of mandible; gonys about half as long as culmen to decidedly more 

 than half as long, nearly straight, little if at all ascending terminally, 

 broad and depressed in transverse section, not at all ridged, its basal angle 

 not prominent; nostrils narrow, obliquely horizontal (the posterior end 

 higher than the anterior end), margined below by dense short feathering 

 of the triangular loral antia, overhung by a broad and prominent horny 

 operculum; mesorhinium very short, broadly rounded and or flattened 

 transversely. Wing moderate, rounded, the outermost primary inter- 

 mediate between seventh and eighth (from outside), the third to fifth 

 longest; longer primaries extending considerably beyond tips of longest 

 (proximal) secondaries. Tail about half as long as wing, slightly but 

 distinctly rounded, the rectrices (16-18) firm, moderately broad, rounded 



