762 
TUENIX TAIGOOE. 
I Coturnix coromcindelica , Ivelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 1B1 (1851, nec Gmelin). 
Turnix ocellatus (Scop., var. taigoor, Sykes), apud Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, 
xiv. p. 107. 
Turnix taigoor (Sykes), Jerdon, B. of Ind. iii. p. 595 (1864); Blyth, Ibis, 1867, p. 161 (in 
part) ; Beavan, Ibis, 1868, p. 386 ; Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 470 ; Ball, Str. Feath. 
1874, p. 428; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 26, et 1875, p. 400; Butler & Hume, Str. Feath. 
1876, p. 7; Fairbank, t. c. p. 62; Butler, ibid. 1877, p. 231; Davidson & Wender, 
ibid. 1878, vii. p. 87 ; Ball, t. c. p. 226 ; Hume, ibid. 1879 (List Ind. B.), p. 111. 
Turnix pagnax, Hume, Nests and Eggs, iii. p. 553 (1875); id. Str. Feath. 1875, p. 178; 
Fairbank, ibid. 1877, p. 409. 
I The Indian Quail, Kelaart; The Button- Quail, Bush-Quail, Black Quail, of Sportsmen. 
Gulu and Gundlu, Hind, in the south ; Salui gundru, Hind, in N.W. Provinces ; Puredi, 
lit. “ the bold one ” (female) ; Koladu, lit. “ no spirit ” (male), Telugu ; Kurung-kadeh 
(female), An-kadeli (male), Tamil (Jerdon); Kadai, Ceylonese Tamils. 
Watuwa, Panduru-watuwa, Bola-watuvm, Sinhalese. 
Adult male. Length 5-8 to 6 - 0 inches ; wing 3-0 to 3-1 ; tail 08 to l'O ; tarsus 0-95 ; middle toe and claw 0-8 ; bill 
to gape 067. 
Iris white ; hill light leaden, dusky brown on culmen ; legs and feet pale bluish or fleshy grey, with the joints and 
tarsus washed with bluish. 
Head and upper surface rufous, with a brownish wash on the former; the feathers of the crown with whitish tips, 
those on the hind neck with white bars, edged with black ; back, scapulars, and tertials with wavy cross bars and 
pencillings of black, many of the back-feathers and the scapulars with broad lateral white stripes ; wing-coverts 
with broad buff-white bands and bars of black ; quills brown, the outer primaries with yellowish-white edges, and 
the secondaries with indentations of the same on the outer webs; throat, fore neck, and chest white, more or less 
tinged with buff, narrowly barred on the chin and throat and broadly barred on the chest with black ; breast, 
belly, and under tail-coverts light rufous, palest on the abdomen. 
Female. Length 6'3 to 6‘5 inches ; wing 3'4 to 3-55 ; tarsus 1-0 ; middle toe and claw 082 ; bill to gape 0-7. 
Iris white, in some with a yellowish hue. 
Head browner than in the male, with black spots and bars anterior to the white tips ; back more handsomely barred 
with black, and with the lougitudinal buff stripes bolder ; wing-coverts and outer webs of the tertials with more 
of the buff-white ground, and very boldly barred with black ; secondaries blackish brown except at the tips, which 
are pale ; tertials rufous, marked with black and buff on the outer webs ; chin, throat, and down the centre of the 
fore neck and chest uniform black ; sides of the chest with broader black bars than the male ; lower parts deeper 
rufous. 
Young. Birds of the year are not so conspicuously marked as adults ; the females have the throat barred with black, 
and the males indistinctly marked with the same ; abdomen and under tail-coverts pale rufescent. 
Obs. As on the mainland, so in Ceylon this species is subject to considerable variation in plumage. Specimens from 
the south and from the damp portions of the west of the island have the rufous of the underparts much deeper 
than north-country birds, which latter correspond tolerably with examples from India. Two skins in the national 
collection from India have the abdomen and under tail-coverts pale yellowish ferruginous, and the middle of the 
breast fulvescent ; and these, I apprehend (for I have not had the advantage of looking over a large series), repre- 
sent the extreme pale coloration in this species. They measure in the wing 3'3 and 3’4 inches, and are both 
females. 
Two species are at present recognized in India as belonging to this type of Bustard-Quail — the present and the allied 
Malaccan, Burmese, and Himalayan form, T. plumbipes , Hodgson, apud Hume. This latter is, in fact, the species 
styled by Jerdon “The Hill Bustard-Quail,” which he places under the head of T. ocellatus, Scopoli, and which follows 
his article on the present species in the ‘Birds of India.* They are closely allied, and, according to Mr. Hume, 
