ITHAGENES 

 BLOOD PARTRIDGES 



ORDER GALLIFORMES 



Family PHASIANIDAE 



Subfamily PERDICINAE 



Genus ITHAGENES 



In general appearance and in actual affinity Blood Partridges are the least 

 pheasant-like of the genera treated in the present monograph. Birds of medium 

 size, they are francolins in general form, but resemble the majority of pheasants in 

 that the sexes are very dissimilar in colour. Both male and female have full, rounded 

 crests ; the plumage is long and soft, and especially lanceolate in the males, which 

 also have the margins of the tail-feathers disintegrated. The tail moult is perdicine, 

 not phasianine, and although for this reason the affinities of these birds are with the 

 francolins and partridges, yet I have included them, as, with the tragopans, they 

 appear to be closely allied to the pheasants. 



The bill is very short, stout and curved ; the facial area is almost bare of feathers ; 

 the ist primary is considerably shorter than the 2nd and 10th, which are nearly equal ; 

 the 5th is usually the longest. The tail of fourteen feathers is somewhat rounded, 

 rather long, and about four-fifths the length of the wing. The moult is from within 

 outward. The tarsus is longer than the middle toe and claw, and in the male is armed 

 with from one to five short stout spurs. 



In colour the females are of a generalized type, mottled brown with faint indica- 

 tions of some of the masculine patterns. This brown, or more exactly burnt umber, 

 is unquestionably the most primitive colour of the group. The secondary sexual 

 characters of the male (with the exception of spurs and the decomposed tail-fringe) 

 consist only of colour and pattern. The primitive hues of the female are carried to 

 a pigmental extreme in isolated patches of crimson, and structurally altered to the 

 blue-grey dorsal and green ventral body colours. 



The short, rounded beak is decidedly non-phasianine (cf. Francolinus). The chin 

 and subcaudal patches of specialized colour, hint at partridge and quail affinities 



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