University of Virginia Library

PARTRIDGE AND QUAIL.

Dear Editor:—Having read with some interest a communication
headed “All in the wrong,” from your correspondent
H., of Marietta, I presume,—such at least was the date
of his article, published in your December number—but not

perceiving that he has shown that I am either all, or at all, in
the wrong, I wish to have one last word in the question.

You will of course remember that this controversy arose
from the fact of H. having put forth an article, entitled “Corrigenda,”
in your December number, containing strictures on
a very beautifully written, sportive, and humorous paper in
your number for October—“Some Observations Concerning
Quail”—by J. Cypress, Jr. This paper was evidently written
as a jeu d'esprit, laying no pretension to ornithological research,
or superior wisdom—but was clearly the production
of the leisure moments of a sportsman, scholar, and gentleman
—wherein, inter alia, he laughed at ornithologists for calling
“bevies of quail, flocks of partridge.”

On this paper—my object is briefly to place before your
readers the disjecta membra of the whole discussion—on this
paper H. discourses thus;—

In reply to this, I—Frank Forester—observed in your January
number, as follows, immediately after quoting the above
extract;—

I proceed to state that “as I can testify from my own observation,
the American bird is, in size, general appearance,
character of plumage, and cry, much more nearly connected
with the English quail than with any partridge existing.”

Thirdly I said—“and I am satisfied that facts will bear out
my opinion—that the Perdix Virginiana is not a true partridge
—and is not correctly termed a partridge in Pennsylvania, any
more than the ruffed grouse—Tetrao umbellus—is correctly
termed a pheasant in the same regions.”

Lastly I said “that the term ortyx is an absurd term to use
in opposition to coturnix, as distinguishing partridge from
quail”—because ortyx——is the Greek, and Coturnix the
Latin, name for the European quail.”

Now though in his article in your February number H.
says that their—i. e. mine and Cypress's—views do not appear
to him correct, I wish to point out to you that so far from
confuting one of my positions, he has confirmed them all; and
entirely changed his own ground.

In his first December paper he asserts—“that the American
bird, Perdix virginiana, is a true partridge, belonging to
the same subgenus with the European partridge, viz., ortyx.”

To this I responded not that the American bird is a quail—
But “that it is not a true partridge—nor of the same subgenus
with the European partridge—and farther that the word ortyx
would be an absurd term as distinctive between partridge and
quail.”

Now hear H. in his present paper—February No. p. 111
—“Mr. Forester is right and I am wrong with regard to the
subgenus of the European partridges, which belong to the subgenus
perdix, or partridge proper!!”

Again he says—“Linnæus named the only North American
bird of the family Tetrao; when the genus perdix was instituted
it became Perdix virginianus!, and now that a more
minute—or subgeneric—distinction is thought necessary, it
becomes an ortyx!”

Ergo! by his own showing, the American bird is not, as

he asserted, and I denied, of the same subgenus with the European
partridge; nor a perdix—which he defines Partridge
proper! and I defined true partridge!—at all.

So far, then, H. has left his position, and come over to
mine!

In the next place I asserted that ortyx— in Greek—
was an absurd word to use as a distinctive term between the
quail and partridge. H. having asserted that the European
partridge and American quail—so called commonly—are ortyges;
and the European quail a coturnix!

And the reason which I gave was, that the words and
coturnix are the same term, meaning the same thing in two
languages.

H. now admits that the new word ortyx is a term invented
not to distinguish the quail from the partridge, but to distinguish
the European Quail from a nameless American bird,
which is neither quail nor partridge! In this sense Frank
Forester never objected to the term; and every part of his
first position is carried out—excepting the remark that the
American bird is more nearly connected with the European
quail than with any partridge existing; and on this point I
will say a few words anon.

H., then, has come over to my statements. First—that the
American bird is not of the same subgenus with the European
partridge, nor is a proper partridge at all!

Secondly, that the European partridge is not an ortyx; and

Thirdly, that the term ortyx has not been applied as a distinction
between quail and partridge; but between quail and a
bird hitherto nameless, and indeed seemingly so still in the
vernacular.

Hear what he says!—“Whence the partridge, quail, and
American bird belong to three”—misprinted those—“distinct

subgenera, our bird being as far removed as ever from any
species of quail, of which there are several!”

Here, then, I might close my article; for I never asserted
that the American bird was a quail—and all that I did assert
—viz., that he was not a partridge—is granted. Therefore,
none of my views before stated were incorrect, nor was I all
in the wrong, or wrong at all.

Now, however, we will go a little farther, and see what
ORTYX virginianus is, and what we must call him—and whether
he is more closely allied to Partridge or to Quail.

And first—Why did the Naturalists, who formed the subdivision
of the genus, call him ortyx——the Greek for
quail? If they had only wished to make a distinction showing
him equally far from quail and partridge, they would not
have merely rested contented with calling him quail, in a
varied language or dialect.

In my humble opinion the very choice of the name shows
that the discriminating Naturalist—who discovered the small
points of distinction “between the quail and thick strong-billed
partridges of the new world,” which he admits to be “so similar,
that they are not to be distinguished without a knowledge
of their habits and an examination of their forms”—considered
the distinction between the American bird and the quail, less
than the distinction between the same bird and the partridge.

It will of course be seen at once that the writer quoted
above—Sir William Jardine—means that the quail and American
bird are “so similar as not to be distinguished without a
knowledge of their habits, and an examination of their forms”
—and not the European quail and European partridge! For
it is obvious that—the European Grey partridge being thirteen
inches long, and the European Red-legged partridge the same
length, but heavier and stronger, while the European quail

does not exceed seven inches and a half—the similarity of
which he speaks is not between these birds, which a blind
man might distinguish by their weight and size!

Sir William Jardine shows what these slight distinctions
are—“In the bill and legs”—he says—“there are slight modifications;
but the form of the wing is quite different—the first
three quills being longest—in the quail,—while in the partridges
the third is longest, and the third and fourth in the ortyx.”

Well may he say the distinction is small!—a slight modification
in the legs and bill, and the fact that the three first
quills of the quail are longest, and the third and fourth in the
American bird or ortyx!

The plumage of both species of European Partridge is utterly
different either from that of the European Quail or the
American bird. Each of the European partridges is nearly
double the size of either of the others; while the Quail and
American bird are very nearly of a size—the American a little
the larger!—and very similar in their general appearance
and plumage.

In habits, particularly in their fierce pugnacity, the Quail
and American bird resemble each other much. The European
Quail certainly is—and many writers state on good
authority—and I fully believe the fact—that the American
bird is likewise—migratory!

The English quail does not perch, to the same extent
with the American bird;—though he does take to bushy
covert—which the Grey partridge never does—but this one
fact is not enough, surely, to make the difference greater, in
spite of the distinctions of size, weight and feather. The
bird called in this country, incorrectly—for I am well aware
there is a small distinction—the English Snipe, occasionally

perches—I have seen it do so, on two occasions, at Pine
Brook, in New Jersey—on rails, bushes, and even on tall willow
trees; and I can prove the fact by the testimony of eye
witnesses, if it be doubted!—yet no one would say, Ergo it
is not a snipe!—at least I think not; though I am certain a
man who should assert in Europe that he had seen snipe
alight in trees would be laughed at and disbelieved, as the
bird there never does so!

That the American bird is, ornithologically and strictly
speaking, a quail, I never asserted.

I denied that it was a partridge, as H. did assert, and has
now yielded.

I did assert, and still do so, that it is more closely connected
with the English quail than with any partridge existing.

Its size—its weight—its plumage—its habits—and last,
not least, its new ornithological name ortyx—Greek quail—
prove that it is so—and that it is so in the opinion, and on
the data of the very ornithologists, who have divided it from
the subgenus coturnix, on account of distinctions which they
admit to be so small as to be undistinguishable, except on minute
examination.

I doubt not that the birds are well divided. It is very obvious
that the European partridge—a bird twice as big as
either quail or ortyx—is rightly separated from them!—and
I doubt not that there are distinctions justifying the ornithologist
in separating the European from the American Quail—
although they are invisible to a common eye! But in the
meantime what shall we call the bird? Not partridge, for it is
not one clearly and confessedly!—I think best to stick to Quail
as the Naturalists themselves half call him so still!—people
would surely laugh at us if we called them ortyges, and I
think very justly!

As to the Ruffed Grouse—Tetrao Umbellus—I never, either
in conversation or in black and white, called it a partridge;
unless to people who knew it only by that name—and I ever
have esteemed it equally incorrect and unsportsmanlike to
do so.

I have now made an end of my paper, and I think your
correspondent H. will admit, after reading it, and after—if he
will—comparing the three articles—that Frank Forester is
not all in the wrong. If you care to show your correspondents
in general how very like the plumage of the English
Quail is to that of the American bird, I send you a drawing,
made by myself many years ago, from one I shot myself;
my notes give, length, 7 1-4 inches—width from wing to
wing, 9 1-2—weight 6 1-10 oz. If you choose, have it done
on wood—but take care of it, and do not let it be besmirched,
as I value it,