According to Gould, this species, captured two or three times in England, had three toes, whereas partridge and quail generally had a well developed fourth hind toe. They lived in north Africa and southern Spain, where they would 'rise with a loud whirring noise from the arid and scrubby plains...'

The female is depicted in the foreground of the illustration. Both examples were found in Tunis or Gibraltar.

DISTRIBUTION: Occurs in countries bordering southwest Mediterranean, Africa south of the Sahara, south Asia and Malaysian Archipelago from east Pakistan and India southeast China, Taiwan, south to the Philippines. No authenticated record for Britain