when captured; the note resembles that of _Crypturus tataupa_ without the final intonation; the eggs are wine-purple or liver-coloured. _N. darwini_, the shy "Perdiz chico" of Patagonia, is greyer. _Calodromas_ (_Calopezus_) _elegans_, the Martineta, ranging from South Uruguay to Patagonia, has a grey and black head and neck with long recurved crest, elevated in excitement, two white bands on each side of the head, rufous and black upper parts, whitish throat and marks on the primaries, and buffish under surface with crescentic black bars and spots. It frequents dry bushy table-lands, often in coveys of twenty or thirty, which run squealing in single file before intruders, and utter, in summer only, a long plaintive whistle, or chorus of notes like those of _Rhynchotus_, but weaker. The flight, accompanied by a wailing sound, is broken by intervals of gliding; the four to sixteen eggs are deep green or yellowish. {186}The remaining genera are _Nothocercus_ with five, _Taoniscus_ with one, and _Tinamotis_ with two species. ORDER IX. GALLIFORMES. The Galliformes, or Gallinaceous Birds, constitute a large and fairly homogeneous Order, situated between the Tinamiformes and the Gruiformes, if we assume the former to be classified in accordance with the views of Dr. Gadow, and not to be placed nearer to the Ratitae; the Gruiformes again linking themselves to the Laro-Limicoline section of the Charadriiformes, and so forth. _Opisthocomus_, however, though decidedly Galline, shows considerable resemblance to the Cuckoo-tribe.[143] The present Order may be divided into the Sub-Orders MESITAE, with the Family _Mesitidae_; TURNICES, with the _Turnicidae_ or Button-Quails, and the _Pedionomidae_; GALLI, with the _Megapodiidae_ or Mound-builders, the _Cracidae_ or Curassows, and the _Phasianidae_ or Game-birds, Fowls, and the like; and finally OPISTHOCOMI, with the Family _Opisthocomidae_, containing but one species, the exceptionally curious Hoatzin. Among the _Galli_, the _Megapodiidae_ and _Cracidae_ together compose Professor Huxley's group of Peristeropodes or Pigeon-footed forms, where all the toes are in one plane; the _Phasianidae_ standing alone in his Alectoropodes, or Fowl-footed division, where the hallux is elevated above its fellows. Excluding _Mesites_, of which comparatively little is known, all the members of the Order agree in having a more or less globular crop, and a somewhat scanty supply of down in the adults, with a more uniform coating in the young, which becomes thinner in _Opisthocomus_; they may be distinguished from the Gruiformes, except _Rhinochetus_, by their impervious nostrils, while the Tinamiformes differ in the compound structure of their bills, the primitive sternum, and the invariably weak rectrices.