Large numbers of quails are shot in the spring.
A little armadillo, the mulita, is the living representative of the antediluvian giants Mylodon, Megatherium, &c. The ostrich-Rhea americana-roams everywhere in the plains; and there are a few specimens of the vulture tribe, a native crow (lean, tall and ruffed), partridges and quails.
The passage from Numbers xi., which is here included, is obviously out of place in its present context (the story of the quails), and supplies in part the necessary antecedent to Ex.
There are also many kinds of game birds, pigeons, ducks, geese, plovers and quails.
Next stands the order Gallinae with 4 " cohorts "; (I) Tetraonomorphae, comprising 2 families, the sand-grouse (Pterocles) and the grouse proper, among which the Central American Oreophasis finds itself; (2) Phasianomorphae, with 4 families, pheasants peacocks, turkeys, guinea fowls, partridges, quails, and hemipodes (Turnix); (3) Macronyches, the megapodes, with 2 families; (4) the Duodecimpennatae, the curassows and guans, also with 2 families; (5) the Struthioniformes, composed of the tinamous; and (6) the Subgrallatores with 2 families, one consisting of the curious South American genera Thinocorus and Attagis and the other of the sheathbill (Chionis).
