Turnix maculosa, Temminck.
Vernacular Names. —[Ngon, {Burmese), Pegu.]
NOTHING is accurately known of the distribution of this species. It occurs, though sparingly, throughout Tenasserim, in Pegu, and Aracan and I have specimens from Hill Tipperah., I should have expected to find this species in Assam, but Godwin- Austen, in his fourth list, gives the Indian species (T. joudera, which, following Jerdon, he erroneously designates T. dussumieri) from the Naga Hills. Perhaps he failed to distinguish the two species, which scarcely differ except in size.
Certainly it is the present species that occurs in Independent Burma, and I have reason to believe that it extends into the northern portions of the Malay Peninsula.
Burmese and Chinese specimens are not to be separated, and David and Oustalet tell us they have compared Chinese specimens with Temminck's type and found only insignificant differences. We may, therefore, assume that this species occurs throughout China, extending into Eastern Siberia, where Prjevalski obtained it in the country of the Ussuri , and whence Dybouski sent it from near Lake Chanka.
Probably this same species will be found to occur in Siam, Cochin China and Tonquin.
I HAVE never .shot this species myself, but doubt not that its habits and haunts are almost precisely similar to that of its Indian representative, T. joudera. Davison, who has shot it throughout Tenasserim only, says :—" I have always found this species about gardens or in the immediate vicinity of cultivation, but it is very rare, being only occasionally met with, and always singly or in pairs. It is hard to flush, and only flies a short distance before again dropping, but it then runs a considerable distance before halting, and thereafter lies very close. It feeds like the other Quails in the mornings and evenings, lying hid during the heat of the day. On cloudy or rainy days it moves about all day. I do not know the call of this species."
Of its nidification nothing seems to have been as yet recorded, but this cannot differ materially from that of its close ally, T. joudera, though the eggs will doubtless average larger.
The following are the dimensions and colours of the soft parts of a male and a female :—
Male.— Length, 6.5 ; expanse, I2.0 ; tail from vent, 1.5 ; wing, 3.62 ; tarsus, 1.0 ; bill from gape, 0.75 ; weight, 2.25 oz.
Female.— Length, 7.0; expanse, 13.5; tail from vent, 1.5; wing, 4.12 ; tarsus, 1.05 ; bill from gape, 0.75 ; weight, 2.75 ozs.
The male had the legs, feet, and claws chrome yellow ; upper mandible dark horny brown; lower mandible pale brown; irides, in three birds, white.
The female had the legs, feet, and claws chrome yellow ; lower mandible, gape, and base of upper mandible chrome yellow; rest of bill reddish brown ; irides white.
Other specimens differ somewhat in dimensions ; the wings of males vary from 3.4 to nearly 37, and the wings of females from 3.8 to 4.12.
The plate is a very pretty picture, and the figure in the background is an absolutely perfect likeness of the particular specimen figured; the two figures in the foreground are also portraits, except that the red on the tertiaries of both, and the breast of the left hand one, is a wrong tint and should be a bright buff with, on the breast, a ferruginous tint. But though on the whole excellent likenesses of the particular birds figured, and giving, I hope, some idea of the character of the markings, this species, like its Indian representative, is so excessively variable, that I have now before me seven other specimens all differing materially from each other and not one of them agreeing at all closely with any of the specimens figured.
First let me say that, so far as plumage goes, both this species and joudera are inseparable. At any rate nine out of ten variations in tint, amount and extent of markings, &c, in this species, can be exactly matched in specimens of joudera and vice versd.
Therefore the figures of this species may be taken as representing also types of plumage of joudera, while the figures of this latter exhibit types of plumage common to the present species (maculosus) likewise.
For be it understood that, though there is a marked difference in size, I can discover no other constant difference between the two species.
If you have two or three specimens only of each, the birds are so variable that the chances are against any one of either corresponding closely with any one of the other; but if you have, say twenty of each, at least ten of either will be counterparts of ten of the others, and five will be fairly matchable.
The difference in size is great. In the Indian birds the wings of males vary from 3.0 to 3.25, and those of the females from 3.3 to 3.55. But unless the birds have been sexed, it seems to me impossible to separate large females of joudera from small males of macutosus. Whether, under these circumstances, and having regard to the different geographical areas occupied by the two forms, it is desirable to treat them as distinct species, is a matter of opinion.
Generally I may say that, so far as I am able to judge, the plumage of the sexes does not differ. The extraordinary variations observable are due, it appears to me, to differences in age. As far as I can make out, the younger birds have the upper surfaces profusely marked with ferruginous red, black, and sometimes more or less of buff on a grey brown ground, and they have only a trace of the rufous collar. Gradually the markings on the mantle grow fainter and fainter, till it becomes a nearly uniform grey brown, not so blue as is depicted in Vieil- lot's figure, but still a somewhat grey brown. As this chancre takes place, the red collar comes out strongly, as shown in the figure referred to. The spottings on the wings diminish in size, and the markings on the head become brown instead of black.
On the lower surface, in the younger birds, the sides of the breast are a grey, at times somewhat olivaceous, brown, of which, however, little is seen, as the feathers are broadly tipped with buff and have a large black spot inside this tipping. As the bird gets older, these spottings almost entirely disappear from the sides of the breast, a few only remaining on the sides of the upper abdomen. Vieillot figures an old, but by no means a very old, bird, and in no specimen are the tertiaries, scapulars, and back the blue grey he has depicted them. Had the ground colour of these parts been brown with a grey shade, his picture would have accurately represented some specimens before me ; but, as a rule in birds at that stage, the markings on the head would have been dark brown and not black.
I subjoin a careful description that I took from a series of adult, but not old, birds, which may assist my readers in discriminating this very variable form. :—
The chin, throat, and middle of the abdomen are white; the entire breast rufous buff, most rufescent in the middle of the breast, which is unmarked; the sides of the breast, with a more or less circular black spot near the tip of each feather ; upper part of abdomen, sides of abdomen, sides of the body much the same pale rufous buff as the sides of the breast; in some specimens these parts are spotless ; in others they exhibit a greater or smaller number of spots, similar to those on the sides of the breast, but often more oval; flanks and lower tail-coverts a rather brighter rufescent buff; feathers of the vent mingled buffy white and dull white; tibial plumes usually brownish; lores buffy white, often speckled with brown; cheeks and sides of the head pale buffy or buffy white, speckled and spotted with brown ; ear-coverts small and inconspicuous, brown or rufescent brown, pale shafted ; indications of a broad pale supercilium; forehead pale buff, barred or speckled with black; crown and occiput rufous (the feathers tipped black), with a narrow pale central streak; back, scapulars, rump, lesser wing-coverts, brown, patched with ferruginous rufous and pencilled with black, and many of the feathers tipped with buffy white, these tippings preceded by a black band; primaries, secondaries, and primary greater coverts plain, pale, grey brown, and the greater coverts and the quills often more or less margined with pale rufescent; median coverts and secondary greater coverts pale greyish rufescent, broadly tipped with buff, and with a large black spot near the tip; tertiaries pale brown, tinged with rufous, especially on the outer webs, pencilled in zig-zag with black, in some perhaps more correctly freckled, and with a buff band, preceded by an irregular black one near the tip on the outer webs.
