A history of the birds of Europe, not observed in the British Isles (1862) (14747523861)

Identifier: historyofbirdsof03bree (find matches)
Title: A history of the birds of Europe, not observed in the British Isles
Year: 1862 (1860s)
Authors: Bree, Charles Robert, 1811-1886
Subjects: Birds Birds
Publisher: London, Groombridge and Sons
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library



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nfor a moment that the difference of colour in thethroat is sufficient to constitute specific difference. Mr.Tristram, however, does not consider that his smallerspecimen is sufficiently deep rufous, for he remarks,—I never saw the white throat from India, or therufous one from Western Europe. Turkey and Syriaare debatable ground held by both varieties. I have not been able to get a Swiss skin for com-parison. As Mr. Tristram observes, however, thequestion is one of race, or of eastern and westernvarieties of the same species. M. Bouteille, as quotedby M. Degland, has succeeded in obtaining a hybridbetween P. Grceca and P. rubra, the males being morelike the former, the females more like the latter.Both had the black collar of the Greek Partridge andthe black spots which follow it in the FrenchPartridge, but smaller and less numerous. The featherson the flanks of the male were more like those ofGrceca, in the female more like rubra. The Greek Partridge is found, as its name implies,
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GREEK PARTRIDGE. 245 in Greece and the islands of the Archipelago, inItaly, Sicily, Switzerland, and Turkey. Thence itspreads into Syria, being replaced in Persia andIndia by the form known as P. chtikar. It is foundin some parts of Germany and France, and amongthe mountains of the Jura, the Alps, and the Pyrenees.Specimens from Japan are, according to Temminck,exactly like those found in Europe. Lord Lilford,(Ibis, vol. ii, p. 238,) says it is the CommonPartridge of the Epirus and the Ionian Islands, but isnot very abundant in Corfu, where it is only metwTith on the ridge of San Salvador. He furtherremarks:—The Greek Partridge haunts the stony hillsides, never, as far as my own observation goes,descending to the plain. It is not easy to make agood bag of these birds, even in localities where theyare numerous, as the coveys disperse on being disturbed,and on alighting each bird takes a line of its own,and sets off running to the nearest covert, which, inthese parts, generally consis