a number of them feeding in the pathway on one of the high
ranges near Weytamaryng, on the Siam frontier, but they darted
into the bush like so many mice, and I could not obtain a second
glimpse of them. With other rasorial birds of the kind, they
are easily snared, though unattainable by a gun,* and the
Malays bring numbers of them for sale to Singapore."
NOTHING IS as yet known, I believe, of the nidification of the
Red-Crested Wood-Ouail.
THE FOLLOWING are dimensions, &c, recorded in the flesh:—
Males.—Length, 1075 to 110 ; expanse, IT2$ to 17-5 ; tail
from vent, 2'5 to 275 ; wing, 5-4 to 5-62 ; tarsus, r<5 to i'65 ;
bill from gape, 085 to 09 ; weight, 8'0 to IO'O ozs.
Females.—Length, 9^5 to 1062 ; expanse, i6'25 to 17T2 ;
tail from vent, 2'5 to 2'62 ; wing, 5'o to 5'62 ; tarsus, 1 65 to
1 7 ; bill from gape, 0'C2 to 0'8 ; weight, 8 ozs.
The male has the legs and feet and basal portion of bill
scarlet red ; claws horny ; rest of bill black ; irides slaty grey;
facial skin and edges of eyelids scarlet.
The female has the legs and feet, bright red ; bill black ; irides
deep brown ; facial skin and eyelids bright red.
Males and females arc alike spurless.
T H E PLATE is extremely good, but the green of the plumage
of the female should be a purer, darker, grass green.
ONLY ONE other species of this genus, Rollnlus niger, from the
Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo, is known, and even
this is generally separated in a sub-genus of its own (Mclanoperdi.
x).
* Like many others, I might say the great majority, of our game birds, they are
easy enough to shoot if you work with dogs.—A. O. H.