THE CASPIAN SNOW-PARTRIDGE 
Tetraogallus caspius. 
Plate XL. 
The first Caspian Snow-Partridge exhibited in the Society’s Menagerie was received in 1842, as a present from 
E. W. Bonham, Esq., of H.M. Consular Service. It was procured in the vicinity of Teheran, in Persia, and 
reached England along with the first examples of a new species of Partridge, which bears Mr. Bonham’s 
name, having been described by Mr. Fraser, in the Society’s “Proceedings” in 1843, as Perdix bonhami. In 1852 
the bird from which Mr. Wolf’s study was made arrived in the Gardens, having been transmitted to the 
Society from the same country by B. Stevens, Esq., Her Majesty’s Consul at Tahreez. It is very unfortunate 
that its companion died on the passage, as there is scarcely a doubt that all the species of this group, which is 
a closely-allied genus to that containing the Impeyan Pheasant, or Monaul, are well adapted for acclimatization 
in this country. Since the death of these specimens, the Society has not been fortunate enough to obtain 
others of the same bird. 
The Snow-Partridges now known to science are four in number, each inhabiting a d ifferent tract of the 
mountainous districts of Asia. While the present bird is found on the higher regions of Asia Minor and 
Persia, the Altai mountains are tenanted by a distinct form — the Tetraogallus altaicus, or Altai Snow-Partridge, 
and in the Himalayas two species are found, one of which (T. himalayensis) inhabits more particularly the 
southern, and the other (T. tibetanus) the northern slope of the great range. All these four birds are figured 
in a recent number of Mr. Gould’s “Birds of Asia,” from which work I venture to copy the following short 
account of the habits of the Caspian Snow-Partridge in a state of nature, as observed by a Russian naturalist 
in the Caucasus: — 
“ This species builds on the highest summits of the rocky mountains of the Caucasus, preferring altogether 
the snowy regions, which it never quits; and when we have attempted to acclimatize the young birds in the 
plains of Ivahetia, they have not survived the spring. It runs along the rocks and the ledges of the precipices 
with great agility, and rises with a great cry at the least danger, so that the most skilful sportsman cannot 
approach within shot except under cover of the mist. It lives in societies of from six to ten individuals, 
becoming the inseparable companion to the Goat, on the excrement of which it feeds during the winter 
months. In autumn it grows very fat, and its flesh resembles that of the Common Partridge. In the crop 
of this gallinaceous bird I have found a great quantity of sand and of small stones, mixed with all kinds of 
seeds of Alpine plants.” 
I may add that this fine Snow-Partridge is said to occur also in tolerable abundance in the Cilician 
Taurus — a country easily accessible from Tarsus—(a port touched at by the steamers of the Levant line from 
Cyprus and Rhodes), to which fact we invite the attention of any wandering sportsman or naturalist who 
may wish to know where to betake himself in search of a new sort of game. 
