Annals of the Transvaal Museum 
193 
Pternistis Wagler, genotype P. afer Muller, differs from all other African 
genera in the character of the bare patch on the throat, for which reason 
alone it has been kept separate; otherwise it is characterised by having 
the membrane over the nostrils extended in a broad band across the base 
of the culmen ; males usually with two pairs of spurs ; size, large, as com- 
pared with the other genera except Chaetopus] sexes much alike, except 
that males are rather larger and have spurs. Members of the genus are 
shy, skulking in dense, coarse vegetation on the borders or in more open 
patches of forests. Their call note is loud and crowing, sounding something 
hke “kwaarie,” repeated a number of times, at first loud and slow, then 
more rapidly as it decreases in volume, and usually repeated again at 
intervals; when disturbed they utter a clucking note, and when flushed 
often rise with a shriller alarm cackle. Their presence is most usually dis- 
closed by the crowing notes uttered early in the morning or late in the 
evening. When flushed with dogs they usually take refuge in a heavily 
foliaged tree, where they are most diflicult to locate. Two groups of species, 
differing mainly in colour characters, may perhaps have to be recognised 
in subgenera. 
With regard to species, Neumann (Journ.f. Orn. 1920, p. 76) has shown 
that P. nudicollis Boddaert, which was commonly applied to the Knysna 
bird, is a synonym of P. afer P. L. S. Muller, and applies therefore to the 
Kaffrarian Red-necked Francolin the name of P. krehsi. In 1911 Gunning 
and I described P. castaneiv enter from Fort Beaufort and the neighbouring 
districts {Ann. Transvaal Mus. iii. no) for the form which commonly 
occurs there, stating in doing so that the series contained fully adult males 
with long spurs; yet despite this statement Sclater (Bull. Brit. Orn. Cl. 
XLi. 135) makes the extraordinary statement that “ It is diflicult to believe 
that Ptemistes castaneiv enter... cdva be anything but a young example of 
this species” (i.e. P. afer krehsi), at the same time ignoring the fact that 
if this were so, castaneiv enter has prior claim by nine years. It is strange, 
but true, that a black breasted form occurs both at Knysna and along the 
Drakensberg, with the more chestnut breasted form intervening between 
these areas; but how this is to be explained remains to be shown when 
longer series are secured, few collections containing sufiflcient to prove 
much. vSclater in the same place puts all the dark-breasted species together 
as subspecies of P. afer\ but it is clear that proof of merging of castanei- 
venter krehsi into humholdti and both these into afer is still wanting and the 
procedure is as arbitrary as the rejection of the name of castaneiv enter. 
Specimens from Chirinda, Beira and Coguno are referred by him to a new 
subspecies, P. afer swynnertoni, but information as to what adults from 
Tette (the type locality of P. humholdti, which was based upon an immature 
female) may be like is not proven and they may well be identical with the 
birds from Beira. The Transvaal Museum possesses two adult males and 
an adult female from Boror and an adult male and a female not yet adult 
of what we have taken to be P. humholdti, and all of these with the ex- 
ception of the last female have the middle of the lower breast uniform black, 
which is so very different from the Drakensberg and Cape Province birds 
that there seems to be no reason for keeping them under the same species ; 
but the Boror birds vary so much in the amount of white on the sides of 
the naked throat patch, face and superciliary stripe that this can hardly 
