296 GALLINAE. 
It feeds upon all sorts of grain and seeds. Its cooing: notes 
are particularly plaintive, and are very frequently repeated 
during the months of spring and summer. 
Prare 56. Fig. 2. Natural size. 
ae Head, neck, breast, and back light wood-brown, tinged 
tion. with pearl-grey. On each side of the neck is a patch 
of black feathers, margined with white. Scapulars and 
wing-coverts black, passing into bluish-erey, and deep- 
ly edged with buff orange, inclining to orpiment-orange. 
Greater quills brownish-black ; secondaries bluish-grey. 
Belly and under tail-coverts white. Two middle tail 
feathers clove-brown; the rest with their tips white; as 
is also the exterior web of the outermost feather. Iri- 
des reddish-orange. The naked space behind the eyes 
and ears pale purplish-red. 
The wing-coverts of the female are not margined with so 
bright a colour as those of the male bird ; and her head 
is of a deeper wood-brown. 
Orprr IX. GALLINACEOUS. GALLINA, 
Auctor. 
CHARACTERS OF THE ORDER. 
Bill strong, convex, and short, the upper mandible either 
‘bending from its base, or only towards the point; and pro- 
jecting over the tip of the lower one. Nostrils basal and la- 
teral; pierced in a large membranaceous space, and protect- 
ed by a cartilaginous scale ; naked, or covered with small fea- 
thers. Wings generally short, and concave. Tail, consist- 
ing of from ten to eighteen feathers. Tarsus of mean length. 
Toes, three before, united at their base by a membrane 5 and 
