Marbled Wood-Quail (Odontophorus gujanensis) Science Article 1
abstract
The Marbled Wood-Quail (Odontophorus gujanensis) is widely distributed through the forested regions of northern South America, but in Central America it ranges no farther north than southweste.m Costa Rica, where it is represented by the Chiriqui race (0. g. castigatus) . Birds of this species are stout, compactly built, and somewhat larger than the familiar Bob-white of North America. A formal description of its plumage is necessarily so long and intricate that it can leave no distinct picture in the reader’s mind; suffice it to say here that at a distance the bird appears to be clad in fairly bright brown, but close at hand it is seen to be beautifully variegated with browns and buffs, of .a bewildering variety of shades all exquisitely blended together, and flecked and vermiculated with black. The breast and abdomen are finely ,and irregularly barred with buff or cinnamon-brown and blackish. There is an erectile crest of long, deep brown feathers. The lores and region about the eyes are bare of feathers, displaying bright orange-red skin, more extensive and somewhat deeper in hue on the male than on the female. The male is also slightly larger than the female. In both sexes the eyes are dark, the bill blackish, and the legs and toes plumbeous.
Alexander F. Skutch, Condor: Vol. 49, No. 6