In _Ithagenes_, or Blood-Pheasant, the bill is short and stout, the tail fairly long and rounded, the plumage soft and acuminate; the orbits are naked and red, and each metatarsus is armed with two or more spurs, generally absent in the female. _I. cruentus_ of the Eastern Himalayas and Tibet has a full buff crest, black forehead and lores, lead-coloured back and wings, brownish remiges and rectrices with white tips to the latter, and a green {218}wash on the wing-coverts and rump. The cheeks, throat, and much of the upper and under tail-coverts are crimson, the breast is yellow-green with crimson streaks. _I. geoffroyi_ of East Tibet and West China has a grey head and throat; _I. sinensis_ of Mongolia and North China is similar, with rufous for green on the wing-coverts. Females are grey, brown, and buff. Found in flocks of twenty or thirty at altitudes between ten and fourteen thousand feet, these bold birds have limited powers of flight, great speed of foot, and a weak cackling note; they bury themselves occasionally in the snow, as do certain Grouse (p. 238), and feed on grass, insects, berries, and shoots of juniper or pine. If a Sub-family _Perdicinae_ be admitted, it may be commenced[158] with the little known _Ophrysia superciliosa_ of North-West India, a soft-plumaged greyish-brown species with black and white markings on the head; next to which comes _Galloperdix_, the Spur-Fowl, with a large bare eye-space, and two or three spurs on each foot in the male, reduced to a single pair in the female. _G. spadicea_ of India, which has been introduced into Madagascar, has a brown crown, and chestnut plumage elsewhere, with grey margins to the feathers, and black vermiculations on the wing-coverts and rump; the female being mottled with black. _G. lunulata_, another Indian form, has the crown black with white streaks, the breast buff with black spots, and black-ringed white ocelli on the mantle; _G. bicalcarata_ of Ceylon has both mantle and crown black with white stripes, and the breast whiter. These birds frequent thick jungles near the coast, or hills up to seven thousand feet, and are extremely wild, though hard to flush; they resort to trees in emergencies, and roost in them at night; the note is a harsh or plaintive whistle; the food consists of grain, insects, and their larvae. Four, five, or even ten whitish or buff eggs are deposited on a few dry leaves below some sheltering shrub. The cocks are stated to fight as viciously as Jungle-Fowl. _Bambusicola fytchii_, the Bamboo-Partridge, found from North-East India to China, has the crown and ear-coverts red-brown; the upper parts olive-brown, varied in places with black and buff, and longitudinally marked with chestnut, except towards the rump; the wing- and tail-quills reddish mottled with buff; the superciliary stripe, throat, {219}and breast buff, the chest brown with chestnut and white blotches, the flanks spotted with black. _B. thoracica_ of South China and _B.