GAME BIRDS OF INDIA AND ASIA, 15S 



black in colour ; the plumage also is nearly black, being a very 

 dark brown, except the under-parts, which are salmon-pink. 

 The sexes are alike, but the young have a feathered head and 

 no helmet. This handsome bird does not throw up a mound 

 to bury its eggs in, but buries them in holea in the black sand 

 of volcanic beaches, coming for some distance from the forests — 

 where it usually lives — to do this, in the months of August and 

 September ; the eggs are over four inches long and of a pale 

 reddish hue. 



Button-Quails . — ( Twmcidoe ) . 



I have already, in the beginning of the last chap- 

 ter, drawn attention to the fact that the Button- 

 Quails or Hemipodes do not belong to the Phasianidee 

 at all, not being true quails, and have pointed out 

 their external differences from the latter. To brief- 

 ly summarise the most striking of these differences 

 again, I may mention that the Indian Button-Quails 

 have no hind toe, and have, in life, distinctly yel- 

 lowish-white eyes, which give them a very different 

 expression. In general habits they resemble the 

 true quails, but the males are always smaller than 

 the females, and are altogether the inferior sex, 

 sitting on the eggs and taking care of the young, 

 while the hens are bold and pugnacious, fighting 

 like the males of the true quails, and not at all do- 

 mestically inclined. The Button-'Quails can hard- 

 ly be seriously regarded as objects of spot, but they 

 are good to eat. 



