THE SNOW PARTRIDGE. 7 



The SEXES are, I think, precisely alike, except that the male 

 has a small blunt spur. Many old females have a sort of knob 

 or corn where the spur is in the male ; and I shot one female 

 {by dissection) that had small, but regularly developed, conical 

 spurs. It is commonly supposed, I presume on the strength of 

 Jerdon's assertion, that the female is smaller than the male. I 

 have measured numbers, and have found some females as large 

 as many males, and some of the latter as small as any females. 



The following are dimensions of adults : — 



Length, 14*5 to 1575; expanse, 22*5 to 24*25 ; wing, 7-3 to 

 8*1 ; tail (of 14 feathers), 5-25 to 5*0; tarsus, r6 to 19; bill 

 from gape, 0*8 to nearly ro ; weight, 16 ozs. to fully 22 ozs.* 



The irides are pale brown, sometimes decidedly reddish ; the 

 bills intense red, often a brilliant coral red, not uncommonly 

 (probably the last trace of nonage) smeared blackish on 

 culmen and about the nares. The legs are red, sometimes, 

 chiefly (if I remember rightly) in the breeding season, an 

 intense red, at others duller and dingier. There is no naked 

 skin patch round the eye. 



The PLATE, taken by Miss Herbert from one of Hodgson's 

 drawings, is a most faithful portrait of the species, but I should 

 note that some specimens are greyer and less brown on the 

 upper surface ; others have the black bars there broader and 

 more strongly marked, while many have the breast a deeper 

 and more maroon chestnut 



The chicks have the upper parts mottled grey and black ; the 

 head, with one black stripe down the middle and one on each 

 side ; the breast and belly rufous ; bill black ; feet flesh colour. 



This IS the only known species of the genus. 



* I have noted several of this weight, and 20 ozs. is, I should say, the average of 

 a good, fat, old bird I have one bird noted as 25 ozs.; but here there may perhaps 

 be a mistake, as no other, of between forty and fifty weighed, exceeded 22 ozs. and a 

 fraction. 



