CALLIPEPLA SQUAMATA.

Sealy Partridge.

Speciric CHARACTER.

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Call. crista plena, ad basim cinerescenti-fusca, ad apicem alba ; enterscapulio, coll: lateribus, et

pectore cinereis, singulis plumis nota triangulart in medio, et ad apicem lunula nigra.

Head and throat hoary, deepening into brown on the crest, the tip of which is white; mantle
and chest delicate ash-grey, each feather with a crescent-shaped mark of black at the tip,
and a triangular patch of brown in the centre ; centre of the abdomen buff, crossed with
bars of mingled chestnut and black; all the upper surface brownish grey ; tertiaries mar-
gined on their inner webs with buff; tail brownish grey; flanks brownish grey, with a
broad stripe of buffy white down the centre; under tail-coverts sandy, with a line of
brown down the centre of each; bill blacks.

Total length, 91 inches; bell, +; wing, 43; ¢tadl, 31; tarsi, 12; middle toe and nail, 12.
Ortyx squamata, Vig. in Zool. Journ., vol. v. p. 275.—Less. Ill. de Zool., texte de pl. 52.
Callipepla strenua, Wagl. Isis 1832, p. 277.

= sguamata, G. RK. Gray, List of Gen. of Birds, 2nd Edit., p. 80.

 

Many years have now elapsed since I first received this species from Mexico, where it is doubtless as
In the absence of all information respecting its habits I can

plentiful as its near allies are known to be.
trusting that the time is not far distant

do no more than portray this rare bird in two different attitudes,
when we may hope to receive some account of its manners and economy.

The Calhipepla squamata, although not so brilliantly marked as some other members of the genus, is never-
, and is rendered conspicuously different from them all by the lunated fascize

theless a very pretty species
shortness of its crest, which is moreover of a soft and hair-

which entirely surround the body, and by the
like character.

Judging from the fact, that wherever a species
differ but little in outward appearance, I am of oj
is very similar, and that the accompanying figures

is not remarkable in its colouring, the male and female
sinion that the plumage of the sexes of the present bird
are representations of both; at the same time this point

is uncertain.
Specimens of this species are very rare in ¢

Society of London, and those from which my

of birds in the British Museum.

Habitat, Mexico.

The figures are of the natural size.

ollections ; there are two or three in that of the Zoological
figures were taken will hereafter form part of the fine series

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