6 BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT OF GEELONG 
BROWN OR SWAMP QUAIL 
Synoicus ypsiliphorus australis 
The name " Partridge Quail," which also has been 
given to this species, is suggestive of its general 
appearance, which is rufous brown washed with 
bluish ash, with narrow shaft-lines to the feathers of 
the back. It is now verging on extinction about 
Geelong, where it was never common within recent 
memory. Probably the reason for its disappearance 
is that it is a local species, living all the year round 
in the same swampy or tussocky area, so that when 
once a locality is " shot out," the birds are seen there 
no more. The last places from which I heard of 
them were Highton and Germantown respectively. 
At the latter place, near the State School, a pair 
were shot in 1900. There is a very closely related 
bird which is still plentiful on the islands in Bass 
Strait : there, in November 1901, I found the nests 
placed in grass tussocks and containing up to fourteen 
eggs, which, of about the same size and ground colour 
as the Stubble Quail's, are finely freckled all over. 
In the Geelong district I never heard of a nest. 
KING OR LEAST SWAMP QUAIL 
Excalfactoria chinensis australis 
This bird has been shot within recent years on the 
Black Hills, near Portarlington ; I know of no other 
