QUAIL, OR PARTRIDGE. 413 
color, spotted with black ; tail, rounded, deep black, ending in a bar 
of bright ferruginous, crossed with a narrow, waving line of black, and 
tipped with whitish ; belly, pure white ; sides, barred with dusky; legs 
and feet, a very pale ashy green; sometimes the whole thighs and sides 
of the vent are barred with dusky and white. 
The female differs in being more obscure in her colors; the white 
on the back being less pure, and the black not so deep. 
> . 
QUAIL, OR PARTRIDGE. — PERDIX VIRGINIANUS. — 
Fre, 192. 
Arct. Zool. 318, No. 185.— Catesh. App. p. 12. — Virginian Quail, Turt. Syst. 
p. 460. — Maryland Quail, Ibid. — La perdrix d’Amerique, Briss. i. 231. — Buff. 
ui. 447, F 
ORTYX VIRGINIANUS. — Bonarante.* 
Perdix Virginiana, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 650.— Colin Colgnicui, Temm. Pig. et 
Gall. iii. p. 436. — Perdix Borealis, Temm. Pig. et Gall. Ind. p. 735.— Ortyx 
Borealis, Steph. Cont. Shaw’s Zool. xi. p. 377. — Perdix Coe Virginiana, 
Bonap. Synop. p. 124.— The Virginian Partridge, Awd. i. p. 388, pl. 76. 
Tus well-known bird is a general inhabitant of North America, 
from the northern parts of Canada and Nova Scotia, in which latter 
place it is said to be migratory, to the extremity of the peninsula of 
Florida; and was seen in the neighborhood of the Great Osage’ Vil- 
lage, in the interior of Louisiana. They are numerous in Kentucky 
* The genus Ortyx was formed by Mr. Stephens, the continuator of Shaw’s 
Zoology, ie the reception of the thick and strong-billed. Partridges, peculiar to 
both continents of the New World, and holding the place there with the Partridges, 
Francolins, and Quails of other countries. They live on the borders of woods, 
among brushwood, or on the thick etd plains, and, since the cultivation of the 
country, frequent cultivated fields. During the night, they roost on trees, and oc- 
easionally perch during the day ; when alarmed, or chased by dogs, they fly to the 
middle branches; and Mr. Audubon remarks, “they walk with ease on the 
branches.” In all these habits, they show their alliance to the perching Gallinew, 
and a variation from the true Partridge. The same naturalist also remarks, that 
ihey occasionally perform partial migrations, from northwest to southeast, in the 
beginning of October, and that, for a few weeks, the northwestern shores of the 
Ohio are covered with Partridges. ' 
Their general form is robust ; the bill very strong, and apparently fitted for a mode 
of feeding requiring considerable exertion, such as the digging up of bulbous and 
tuberous roots. The head is crested in all the known species, the feathers some- 
times of a peculiar structure, the shafts bare, and the extremity of the webs folding 
on each other. The tail also exhibits different forms; in the more typical species 
short, as in the Partridges, and in others becoming broad and long, as seen in the 
Indian genus Crasx, or the more extensively distributed genus Penelope. Consid- 
erable additions to the number of species have been lately made. Those belonging 
to the northern continent, and consequently coming under our notice, are two, dis- 
covered by Mr. Douglas, —Ortyx picta, described in the last volume of the Linnean 
Transactions, and O. Douglasii, so named by Mr. Vigors, in honor of its discover- 
er, and also described with the former. To these may be added the lovely O. Cal- 
* ifornica, which, previous to this expedition and the voyage of Captain Beechy to 
e coast of Cali el yas held in the light of a dubious species. I have added 
