280 PARTRIDGE. 
extent, and when in good order, weighs about three pounds and a half ; 
the neck is furnished with supplemental wings, each composed of 
eighteen feathers, five of which are black, and about three inches long, 
the rest shorter, also black, streaked laterally with brown, and of 
unequal lengths ; the head is slightly crested ; over the eye is an elegant 
semicircular comb of rich orange, which the bird has the power of rais- 
ing or relaxing ; under the neck wings are two loose pendulous and 
wrinkled skins, extending along the side of the neck for two-thirds of 
its length, each of which, when inflated with air, resembles, in bulk, 
color and surface, a middle sized orange ; chin cream-colored ; under 
the eye runs a dark streak of brown ; whole upper parts mottled trans- 
versely with black, reddish brown and white ; tail short, very much 
rounded, and of a plain brownish soot color ; throat elegantly marked 
with touches of reddish brown, white and black; lower part of the 
breast and belly pale brown, marked transversely with white ; legs 
covered to the toes with hairy down, of a dirty drab color ; feet dull 
yellow, toes pectinated ; vent whitish ; bill brownish horn color ; eye 
reddish hazel. The female is considerably less, of a lighter color ; 
destitute of the neck wings, the naked yellow skin on the neck, and 
the semicircular comb of yellow over the eye. 
On dissecting these birds the gizzard was found extremely muscular, 
having almost the hardness of a stone ; the heart remarkably large ; 
the crop was filled with briar knots, containing the larvae of some 
n insect, — quantities of a species of green lichen, small hard seeds, and 
some grains of Indian corn. 
Genus LVII. PERDIX. 
Species P. VIE GINIANUS. 
QUAIL, or PARTRIDGE. 
[Plate XLVII. Fig. 2.] 
Arct. Zool. 318, No. 185.— Catesb. App. p. 12. — Virginian Quail, Turt. Syst. p. 
460. — Maryland Q. Ibid. — Le Perdrix d'Amtrique, Briss. i., 231. — Buff, ii., 
447 * 
Tins well known bird is a general inhabitant of North America, 
from the northern parts of Canada and Nova Scotia, in which latter 
place it is said to be migratory, to the extremity of the peninsula of 
* Tctrao Virginianus, Linn. Syst. ed. 10, p. 161. T. Marilandicus, id. ib. — 
Perdix Virginiana, Lath. Ind. Om. p. 650. P. Marilanda, id. p. 651. — Caille de 
la Louisiane, Buff. PI. Enl. 149. 
