294 
■Birds of Gambia. 
ber, 1906, which I Ij^lieve to have Tjeen an old male of ih© 
European species, which had probaldy retained its previous season's 
breeding plumage. It had a very distinct white eyebrow and down 
the miadl': of the chin and throat ran a black line, the rest pt 
the chin and throat being white, with a narrow! red-'bn)\vn streak 
across the cheeks from the gape backwards, and a cresoentic simi- 
larly coloured half -collar across the front of the lower neck. the. 
points of which joined the loral streak below the eyes. 
For further particulars of this and other Game-birds I may 
refer those int.el■e^'ted to Ogilvie Grants Handbook, of the Game-birds, 
an inexpensive but most useful work in two volumes published 
in Allen's Naturalist's Libra'-y some time in the nineties. For my 
indebtedness also to this authority on the subject I take this oppor- 
tunity of expressing my best thanks. 
To the Gamliia, Quails are only winter visitors, but are not 
uncoimmon here in the winter, from the middle of November to 
February. They are usually found singly in the dry grass of the 
edges of the swamps or in the clumps left among the corn and 
g(rouna-nut fields. They generally ri e almost at one's feet and 
skim off with rapia curving flight, calling sharply, " twit-twit-twit," 
as they go, along the top of the grass, to dive again at the earliest 
opportunity into cover, from which it is generally impossiljle to 
raise them a second time, for when once flushed and missed, they 
either lie close or creep out of the w;iy ;imon£f the thick grass 
stems. Although only temporary visitors with us they are 
well known to the natives under the names of Jatto-berrando (=lion- 
'^carer) among the Mandingoes and Tiprip or Pikrik among tne 
Joloffs, the latter names being no dou'bt imitati')ns of the bird's note. 
Of the FRANCOLINS, the ''four 'species which follow are known 
from the Gambia. Three, I know well, one, the u^qitous " Wallo," 
the other two less common and moi'e local. The fourth species, F. 
Iiilhami. is. I believe, only known from two or three skins! in the 
British Museum, which came from the Kunchow Creek, a water- 
way which divides thJ two Provinces of the Upper Riverl and Mc- 
Carthy Island. 
Francolinus bicalcaratu.s. DOUBLE-SPUBRED FRANCOLIN. 
Baiige. West Afiica, Niger to Mogador. 
This is the Gambian Game-bird par excellence and is well 
known to everybody as the "Bush- fowl." They are common nearly 
all ovej- the Pro e.^to rate, though nativnally more numerous in some 
places than others, and as game-birds give plenty of sport, risingi 
well, especially at the beginning of the season, and flying very much 
like a Partridge, but generally getting up at rather a longer range 
and thus counterbalancing their larg^er size. La'er on in the sea.son 
however, when nearly all the grass is burnt, they are less sporting 
and more difficult to get, as then they run off in, front of onei 
over thi bare ground, keeping .some 70 or 80 yards ahead, and abso- 
lutely refuse to rise unless cornered. In addition to their sporting 
