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ORTYX CASTANEUS, Gowda.

Chestnut-coloured Partridge.

SPECIFIC Cuar ACTER.

Ort. fronte gulaque nigris ; lined superciliara alba obsoleta usque ad occiput ; pectore et lateribus
suturaté castaneis ; plumis abdominalibus albis, nigro undatim fasciatis lateralibus, guttis

albis supra nigro cinctis, ornates.

Forehead and throat black ; an indistinct line of white runs over the eye to the occiput, above
this another indistinct line of black; crown of the head, back of the neck, upper part of
the back, shoulders, chest and flanks, deep rich chestnut; the feathers on the sides of the
neck with a black stripe down the centre and an oblong patch of white down the outer
web; the tertiaries and some of the scapularies margined with deep fawn-colour, bounded
within by an indistinct line of black; these feathers are also crossed with indistinct bars
and freckles of black; rump and upper tail-coverts rich chestnut, minutely freckled, barred
and dotted with black; feathers on the centre of the abdomen white, marked with strong
zigzag bars of black, changing into spots of white, bounded above by black on the flanks,
all these marks being very brilliant; eyelash dark olive; irides dark reddish hazel; bill
black ; legs yellowish white.

Total length, 82 inches ; bell, vs; wing, 44; tail, 2t; tarsz, 14.

Ortyx castanea, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part X. p. 182.—Gray and Mitch. Gen. of
Y I y

Birds, vol. i. p. 514, Ortya, sp. 4.

 

Tur only example of this species that has come under my notice, I obtained in a living state at the sale
of the Collection of the late Zoological Gardens at Manchester. I must admit that I have always had a
suspicion that the individual in question had assumed some unnatural style of colouring, and that it was
merely a variety of Ortyx Virginianus or O. Cubanensis ; but the rich chestnut colouring of the body, the
black colouring of the forehead and throat, and the conspicuous markings of the sides and abdomen, are
characters so different from what are observable in those species, that I have no other alternative than to
describe and figure it as distinct. In size, too, it somewhat exceeds both the birds above-mentioned.

Habitat; at present unknown.

The figures are of the natural size.

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