222 , PHASIANIDa: COTUENIX 



abdomen and under tail-coverts ; sides of the chest and flanks rich 

 rufous with white and black shaft lines. 



Iris light brown ; bill dark, almost black ; legs pale pinky 

 yellow. Length 7-0; wing 3-85; tail 1-60; culmen -40; tarsus 1-0. 



The female has the throat pure white and unspotted ; the sides 

 of the head and neck, the breast and the flanks are all white, profusely 

 spotted with black and slightly tinged round the spots with pale 

 chestnut. 



Males in non-breeding plumage and young males differ from the 

 breeding adults in having no black patch on the throat. 



This bird differs from the European Quail {Coturnix communis) 

 in having the lores, sides of the head, chin and throat rufous instead 

 of white and in being slightly smaller (wing 3-70 to 3-90 against 4-2). 

 It is only recently that Mr. Grant has separated the South African 

 Quail as distinct from the European bird, which is found throughout 

 the greater part of Europe and Asia, breeding towards the North 

 and wintering in Africa and Southern Asia. Mr. Grant further 

 believes that the European bird reaches our limits and occasionally 

 interbreeds with our resident Cape subspecies. All the specimens 

 which I have come across, however, from South Africa are 

 undoubtedly referable to the red-cheeked Coturnix africana ; more- 

 over there are no specimens of the white-cheeked form from South 

 Africa in the list of those preserved in the British Museum, though 

 there are two stated to be intermediate between the subspecies from 

 the Cape Colony and Natal respectively. This seems to point to 

 the fact that the true European Quail does not as a rule, at any 

 rate, extend its migrations so far south as the Zambesi. 



Distribution . — The Cape Quail is found all over South Africa 

 from Cape Town to the Zambesi ; beyond our limits it has been 

 noticed in Nyasaland, Madagascar, the Comoros, Cape Verde and 

 Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores. 



The following are localities : Cape Colony — Little Namaqualand, 

 September, October (Howard), Cape division, July, Stellenbosch, 

 October, Worcester, December (S. A. Mus.), Deelfontein (Seimund), 

 Middelburg, December to January (Gilfillan), Graham's Town, 

 March (Layard), Port Elizabeth (Rickard), King William's Town 

 September to January (Trevelyan and Pym), Pondoland, July (S. A. 

 Mus.), Lady Grey, September to January (Lawrence) ; Natal — near 

 Durban, April to June (Ayres), Maritzburg, November and Decem- 

 ber, near Newcastle, May, July, October (Butler, Feilden and 

 Eeid) ; Orange Eiver Colony— Kroonstad, April (Symonds), Vrede- 



