HPWBBWWWWWWBBWP I*'1 * WWJ
primaries banded with buff. The sexes are alike in plumage. Most of the members are about the size of
the European Partridge. They affect the forests rather than the more open parts of the country: except
when accompanied by their brood, are usually met with singly or in pairs, and when flushed generally take
to the branches of trees instead of again descending to the ground.
The species are:—
25. Odontophorus Guianensis . . . . . . PI. XXIII.
26. --------------------marmoratus.
Od. corpore subtiis olivaceo-fusco et nigro variegato, his coloribus fascias apud pectus et abdomen efficientibus;
crisso, et femoribus fuliginoso-nigris.
Under surface mottled olive, brown and black, assuming the form of bars on the breast and abdomen; under tail-
coverts and thighs sooty black.
Ortyx ( Odontophorus) marmoratus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part XI. p. 107.
I have not considered it necessary to figure this species, inasmuch as it only differs from 0. Guianensis in
having a smaller bill, in having the orbits more extensively denuded of feathers, a more lengthened and
darker crest, and the whole of the under surface dark brown crossed by narrow bands of huff and black:
the under tail-coverts and thighs also are sooty black.
This is one of the species referred to as having been discovered in the neighbourhood of Santa Fe de
Bogota. The only specimens I have seen, are, one in my own collection, one in that of the Jardin des
Plantes at Paris, and one in the Museum of the Earl of Derby.
27. Odontophorus pachyrhynchus
28. --------------------speciosus
29. -------^ d e n t a t u s .
30. --------------------stellatus .
31. .. yv ;--t- guttatus .
32. ----------------— Balliviani
PI. XXIV.
PI. XXV.
PI. XXVI.
PI. XXVII.
PI. XXVIII.
PI. XXIX.
This remarkable bird, which may certainly be regarded as the finest species of the restricted genus Odontophorus,
is rendered conspicuous by its light chestnut crest, and by the stellations of white ornamenting the
chestnut-brown colouring of the under surface.
33. Odontophorus Columbian us
34. --------------------strophium
35. --------------------lineolatus
PI. XXX.
PI. XXXI.
PI. XXXII.
I have now enumerated every species of this group with which I am at present acquainted ; all of which
having been carefully compared and examined, I am fully satisfied that they are each specifically distinct,
the whole forming a large and well-defined family, distinguishable from the Partridges and Quails of the
Old World, with which they have been usually associated, by the absence of any spur or spur-like appendage
on the tarsi, and by the possession of tooth-like processes on the under mandible. They are pugnacious in
disposition, semi-arboreal in their habits, deposit their eggs in a depression of the ground, or in a very
inartificial nest, and the eggs of all the species, so far as I have, been able to learn, are white ; their food
consists of seeds, berries, fruits, and the tender leaves of grasses and other annuals ; their flesh is white,
tender, and well-flavoured.