332 PARTRIDGE. 



seven to twelve in number ; wings brown black, outer margins of 

 the quills tawny; neck, breast, belly, sides, and thighs, blue black, 

 somewhat glossy ; shoulders, rump, and tail, muddy green, with a 

 tinge of purple ; the tail is about two inches and a quarter long, 

 rounded in shape, concave below, and convex above; legs naked, red, 

 with four toes, the three before united by a web as far as the first 

 joint, and one behind ; the claws on the forward ones blackish, 

 and concave ; but no claw on the back toe ; nor has the leg any 

 spur behind; such is the description of the male of this species. 



Pl. cxxxi. 



The female is about eleven inches. General colour of the 

 plumage a beautiful deep green, inclining to dusky about the head ; 

 bill pale red, a trifle bent at the end ; between the bill and eyes bare 

 and reddish ; beneath, and behind the eye, the same ; tail, thighs, 

 and vent dusky ; the wings fine reddish tawny brown, a little mottled 

 with black ; the quills palest ; legs pale red ; the hind toe without a 

 claw, as in the male : but in some specimens there are a few long 

 plumous bristles on the forehead. 



These birds seem to inhabit different parts of India, and have 

 been brought from Malacca and Sumatra. They certainly vary much, 

 but we suspect that some of the painters who have taken the likeness 

 of the bird, have heightened the colour too much, being deceived 

 by the glossiness of the plumage. We have seen four or five specimens 

 of the male, none of which were greatly different in colour from that 

 figured in JWus. Carls, which was brought from Macao; but all 

 which have come under our view, were tinged with green, or blue in 

 different lights, and all of them wanted the back claw. That first 

 seen by us, in the Leverian Collection, certainly had a back claw;* 

 and in the bird figured in the Carlsonian Museum, there is one also : 



* It has been hinted to us, that this specimen being faulty in respect to the legs, a pair 

 from a Pigeon supplied their place. 



