TO! lillll iil^HHIL 



Perdicula asiatica, Latham, 



VemaCUlar Names.— [Lowa (Hindustani) ; Gorza ( ? Hindi) ; Juhar, Man* 

 bhoom ; Auriconnai (Sonthali) j Girza-pitta (Telegu) ; Kari-lowga (Canarese), 

 Mysore.] 



LTHOUGH the haunts and distribution of the 

 present and the next species, the Rock Bush-Quail, 

 are somewhat different, yet the two species are so 

 similar in habits, resemble each other so closely, and 

 are so persistently confounded even by ornitholo- 

 gists,* that I am compelled to preface my remarks 

 on the first of these two species, by setting forth, as 

 clearly as I can, the distinctions that exist between them, and 

 the points which may be relied on for their discrimination. 



The adults of both sexes (and I believe most of the young 

 also) may be distinguished at a glance by two characters. 



1st. — The bright chestnut hue of the chin and throat of the 

 Jungle Bush-Quail, which contrasts equally strongly with the 

 white, black-barred, lower surface of the male and the dull 

 rufous of the same parts in the female. In the Rock Bush- 

 Quail, the chin and throat are dull rufous, the chin often being, 

 especially in the females, whitish, and in these latter the throat 

 is unicolorous with the breast. It is difficult to represent 

 colours accurately in words, but bright chestnut and dull rufous 

 {slightly suffused in many specimens with a grey shade) are so 

 different that this colouration of chin and throat ought alone 

 to suffice to distinguish adults, at any rate, of the two species. 



2nd. — The long, well-marked yellowish white superciliary 

 stripe which, in the Jungle Bush-Quail, begins in males at the 

 nostrils, and in females a little further back, and in both runs 

 over the eyes and ear-coverts right down to the nape, averaging 

 in males 1*15 and in females 0*9 in length. In the Rock Bush- 

 Quail the supercilium is by no means well marked, very 

 narrow, and only just extends to the ear-coverts ; in many 



* Thus, Mr. Gould, B. of As., XV., pis. 12 and 13, gives us some beautiful 

 figures of what he supposes to be the two species, asiatica, the Jungle Bush-Quail, 

 and argoondah) the Rock Bush-Quail ; but all his figures really represent one species 

 only, viz., the Jungle Bush-Quail, and what he supposes to be an adult female of 

 argoondah is merely the young of the Jungle Bush-Quail before the chestnut of the 

 throat has shown out. 



