353 
Ornithology of Transvaal. 
the present species forms a third in the restricted subgenus 
Coturnicops, the two previously known being the North- 
American C. noveboracensis (Gmel.), and the Asiatic C. ex- 
quisita, Swinhoe, figured in f The Ibis' for 1875, pi. iii., both 
of which are, like their southern congener, remarkable for the 
conspicuously white secondary feathers of the wing. 
The two specimens are both marked by Mr. Ayres as females, 
the one being apparently adult, and the other immature; the 
latter I have placed in the British Museum, retaining the 
former in my own collection. 
Both examples are represented in the annexed plate, which 
will enable them to be readily recognized; but I may add the 
following description of their coloration and marking :— 
Female adult. Crown of head and back of neck blackish 
brown, interspersed with dark rufous-brown spots, which are 
more numerous on the neck than on the head; sides of head 
mottled with pale and dark brown, the former slightly pre¬ 
ponderating ; sides of neck rich rufous brown, with narrow 
blackish-brown tips to the feathers; back black, with nar¬ 
row white edgings to the sides of the feathers, beyond which, 
in some of the feathers, an outer edging of olive-brown is 
perceptible; similar but more conspicuous brown edgings 
occur on the feathers of the greater and median wing-coverts, 
which, with this exception, are blackish brown, as are also 
the least coverts, all the coverts being more or less spotted 
with white ; the primaries dull brown, the fifth and subsequent 
ones being very slightly tipped with white,* all the secondaries 
pure white, except a brown shaft-mark, slightly spreading on¬ 
to the webs at the base and tip, and excepting also the last 
feather, which is slate-coloured, mottled with white; upper 
tail-coverts transversely marked with alternate bars of dark 
rufous and blackish brown, the latter being the broader; chin 
white, slightly tinged with rufous; and the throat the same, 
but with the feathers very narrowly edged with blackish 
brown; breast rufous brown, but paler than the sides of the 
neck ; flanks and abdomen mingled black and white, the black 
predominating on the flanks, the white on the abdomen; tibise 
resembling on the sides the coloration of the flanks, and on 
