QUAILS. 205 
by the lack of the white basal line. Its extreme length 
is about nine and a half inches for the adult male, with 
an alar extent of from thirteen and a half to fifteen 
inches. The tail is four and a fourth inches long, and 
the tarsus one and one-fourth. The bill is black, the 
eyes are brown, and the feet gray. The general color 
of the body is a grayish-ash, with plain white abdomen, 
and a broad white edging on the upper webs of the 
tertials, the elongated feathers on the sides being of a 
bright chestnut. 
The male presents more of a leaden or bluish hue than 
his spouse; the white beneath is strongly tinged with 
reddish or orange-yellowish; and a black patch is observ- 
able upon the abdomen. The throat and anterior half 
of the head are black, deep and glossy, bordered be- 
hind by two broad, well-defined stripes of white, the 
upper of which crosses the middle of the vertex, and 
then follows backward above the auriculars to the occi- 
put, while the lower begins at the posterior angles of the 
eyes joining upon or near the vertex. The top and back 
of the head is of a bright reddish hue, bordered anterior- 
ly with black. The female may easily be distinguished 
from the male by her smaller size, being nearly an inch 
less in length, and lacking the pure white, black, or red 
about the head, and the black spot upon the abdomen. 
Her colors, too, are much more cinerous, with little or 
no bluish cast. Both sexes have the crest, or plume, 
which adds materially to their elegance and beauty, 
though that of the female rarely exceeds an inch in 
length, and the feathers composing it are of a sober 
brown, and less recurved. This appendage in the male 
is half an inch, sometimes a full inch, longer than that 
of the female, of a glossy, jet-black hue, and tends to 
give him a very jaunty appearance. The crest is freely 
movable and subject to voluntary control, and though 
usually carried erect or with a slight backward inclinar 
