COTUKNIX CHINENSIS. 
757 
Plumage wanting the blue and maroon colours. General character of the upper surface ferruginous brown, handsomely 
blotched on the back and rump with black, and also cross-rayed with the same ; the crown is chiefly black, the 
feathers edged with rufous-brown ; down the centre is a conspicuous whitish stripe, tinged with rufescent in 
some, and the feathers of the upper surface, together with those of the scapulars, some of the tertials, and 
innermost greater wing-coverts, have a bold pale central stripe, most conspicuous on the rump. 
Porehead, above the eye, face, chin, and throat p ale rufous-brown, with a black-dotted stripe from the gape to the ear- 
coverts, which are greyish ; chest, upper breast, and flanks barred with black on a light rufescent ground, which 
pales to whitish, unmarked on the lower breast and abdomen ; thighs and under tail-coverts barred with black. 
Birds which are apparently immature are characterized by the rufescent character of the strife and ground-colour of 
the under surface. In some the chin is almost white. 
Ohs. I regret to say that I did not succeed in procuring any nestlings of this species ; and I am therefore unable to 
supply those details as to young plumage and subsequent changes w ; hieh I find wanting in previous descriptions 
of this interesting and variable little bird. It is, I think, not unreasonable to conjecture that the male and female 
are alike in the first stage. 
An examination of a series from India, China, the Philippines, the Malay Archipelago, and Australia will demonstrate 
that this Quail is subject to much local variation, chiefly consisting in the greater or less amount of blue on the 
wings and back of the male, as also in the extent to which the black markings of the back monopolize that part, 
which latter characteristic must be looked for chiefly in the male. The absence or not of the occipital stripe, and 
the amount of striation on the back and of red on the wing, I take to be caused by age as much in birds from other 
parts as I have found to be the case in Ceylon, with this reservation, that in India the stripe on the head seems to be 
normally more pronounced than in birds from other parts. Birds which I take to be not fully-aged males from 
China (“ Takow ” and “ China”) agree, however, with some from India in having the stripe much pronounced. 
Sarawak, Malaccan, and South-Australian examples (males) are characterized by a large amount of blue on the upper 
surface, and the females by having the lower back much overspread with black, and seem, at first sight, to be 
quite different birds ; but on closer examination the coloration is merely an exaggeration of what exists in our 
birds. 
Female. Wing 4'3 to 4-4 inches. Has the chest less tinged with rufous than the male, and the stripes on the side 
of the neck and the throat-band absent ; the former are present as a series of spots only. 
Young. The chick is rufous-buff above, with two broad black stripes over the head and one down the back, and an 
irregular stripe along the back at each side ; wings striped with black. 
Distribution.-— Mr. Bligh, my valued correspondent from the Central Province, writes to me of the supposed 
occurrence, in the Y ala district, of the Common Quail. In January (1879) last he met with a pair of large Quails which 
were flushed from beneath his feet, and flew away strongly, uttering a chirping note similar to that of the species in 
question ; but being in pursuit of large game at the time, he was unfortunately (for science at least) unable to fire, and 
he does not therefore consider his identification satisfactory. In point of fact these birds may have been the little Quail- 
Partridge, Perdicnla asiatica, already treated of, or they may have been the Bain-Quail of India, O. coromandelica, which 
was included, on what authority we know not, in Kelaart’s catalogue. The former is common in the Eastern Province, 
and the latter may have, on equal grounds with the Common Quail, journeyed southwards to Ceylon during the migratory 
season. Both are, however, only slightly smaller than the Bush-Quail ( Turnix taigoor), which Mr. Bligh well knows, 
and numbers of which he met with on the trip in question about Yala ; whereas he writes me that these new birds were 
much in excess of that species. It is therefore not unlikely that, after all, his surmise may be correct, and doubtless on 
some future occasion the Common Quail will be satisfactorily identified from Ceylon. 
It is a cold-weather visitant to India, being found throughout the empire in suitable localities during the winter 
months ; but many pairs are said to remain to breed in the northern parts of the country. It does not appear to pass 
to the east of the Bay of Bengal, although it is an inhabitant of China in winter and summer, and a resident, according 
to S winhoe, in Formosa. To these eastern regions of the continent, however, it finds its way from Southern Siberia, across 
which it extends in summer from Western Asia, reaching even the distant islands of Japan. In elevated regions on the 
5 e 2 
