14 
AN AUSTRALIAN BIRD BOOK. 
1 6* King Quail (Chestnut-bellied, Least, Dwarf, Swamp), Ex- 
4 calfactoria chinensis lineata, Philippines, Sumatra to A. 
exc. W.A. ; sub-species of Chinese Quail. Nom. r. sivamps 4.5 
Back dark-brown; breast blue-gray; abdomen chestnut; 
throat black, white bands conspicuous; 1^ oz. ; f., dark- 
brown, spotted black; throat whitish; under barred 
black. Weed-seeds, insects. 
F. 11. Numididae, Guinea-Fowls, 23 sp. E. 
of bone down the breast. Thus they belong to the sub-class, the 
members of which have a raft-like breast bone. The other living 
birds were placed in the sub-class the members of which have 
a keel on the breast bone for the attachment of the wing- 
muscles. 
Recently, however, Pycraft, a leading ornithologist, has pro- 
posed to base the division into sub-classes on the characters of 
the bones of the palate instead of those of the breast-bone. Thus, 
he places the sixth family of birds— the Tinamous, of South 
America — with the ratite birds, to form his primitive group — 
Palaeognathae (*'old jaw"), while the members of the old sub- 
class Garinatae, minus the Tinamous, constitute his second divi- 
sion, the Neognathae ("new jaw"). 
Mr. Gregory Mathews, the first part of whose projected great 
work on Australian Birds has just come to hand, has followed 
Dr. Bowdler Sharpe in accepting this classification, so we must 
follow too, as Mathews' work will probably be our standard for 
