Dimensions. Total length (of skin) from tip of bill to end of tail, about 7½ inches; wing, 3½; tail, 4 inches; female, slightly smaller.
Colours. Male. Narrow frontal band, throat and neck in front, and space extending to the eye, back, wings and tail, glossy black. External edges of the quills, and tips of wing coverts white, the latter forming two white bars on the wing. Upper part of the head and neck, rump and upper tail coverts, and all the under parts, fine golden yellow, paler on the abdomen. Inferior wing coverts, and tail feathers at their basis, pale yellow. Bill, bluish horn colour.
Female. Entire upper parts, olive green, tinged with yellow on the head and rump. Wings, pale brown; coverts, tipped with white, and quills narrowly edged with white; tail, above, yellowish green. Entire under parts, greenish yellow.
Hab. Texas and Mexico. Spec. in Mus. Acad. Philada.
Obs. This species does not intimately resemble any other of its group, though partaking of their general style of colouring, and can be readily recognized by the student. Very fine specimens were obtained in Texas by Capt. McCown, which are now in the collection of Mr. George N. Lawrence, of New York, to whom we are indebted for an opportunity to figure the female. The latter does not resemble the male in colour.
Our figures are about two-thirds of the natural size.
Plate 9
Gambels Partridge
Callipepla Gambellii (Nuttall)
CALLIPEPLA GAMBELII.—(Nuttall.)
Gambel’s Partridge.
PLATE IX.—Male and Young Female.
Mexico and the adjacent parts of the United States are particularly productive of game birds, and amongst them are several species of Partridges, unrivalled in beauty of plumage by those of any other country of the world. Of those, some prefer fertile valleys, or grounds under cultivation; others appear to live almost entirely in the barren plains, or in the mountains.