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Germs FRANCOLINUS. 



Perdix apud Brisson, Orn. i. p. 245 (1760). 

 Tetrao apud Linnseus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 275 (1766). 

 Francolinus, Stephens in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xi. p. 319 (1819). 

 Attagen apud Keyserling & Blasius, Wirbelth. Eur. p. 65 (1840). 

 Chcetopus apud Swainson, fide Degland & Gerbe, Orn. Eur. ii. p. 59 (1867). 



This genus includes a considerable number of species, chiefly richly coloured, as far as the males 

 are concerned, which inhabit the Ethiopian, Paraparetic, and Oriental Regions, only one species 

 being found in the Western Palsearctic Region. 



They have much in common, as regards habits, with the common Partridge. They frequent 

 dry rush-beds near water, plains where there is plenty of shelter in the way of scrub, and sandy 

 dry localities. They rise with a quick whirring flight, and fly direct and tolerably swiftly, but are 

 as easy to hit on the wing as a Quail. They feed on seeds, shoots, and insects, which they pick 

 up from the ground ; and, unlike the Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges, they never perch 

 on trees. They walk and run with ease, and, like the Red-legged Partridges, will often run for 

 some distance in preference to seeking safety in flight. They make their nests on the ground, 

 merely scratching a hole in the soil in some well-covered place, which they line with a few 

 grass-bents, and deposit numerous eggs, which are of a peculiar bufly-brown colour and have a 

 few small white shell-markings scattered over the surface. 



Francolinus vulgaris, the type of the genus, has the bill rather long, the culmen at the base 

 dividing the frontal plumes, gradually decurvecl to the point, which is narrow and rounded and 

 considerably overlaps the lower mandible ; nostrils lateral, basal, placed in the lower anterior 

 part of the nasal depression, and covered by a hard rounded scale ; wings moderate, broad and 

 rounded, the first quill shorter than the sixth, the fourth and fifth longest, the secondaries as 

 long as the primaries ; tail short, slightly rounded, nearly concealed by the coverts ; legs strong, 

 tarsus rather long and stout, anteriorly scutellate, armed in the male with a tubercle behind ; 

 hind toe short, anterior toes moderate, united at the base by a membrane; claws moderate, 

 slightly curved, moderately sharp. 



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