Black Francolin (Francolinus francolinus)

 


Photo: Kypros-Net

Greek Name: ho attagâs [German: Halsbandfrankolin].
Description:


 Black head and chest, white spot on the cheek, brown collar around the neck, the rest of the body spottled with white or chestnut-brown spots, chevrons, and bars . L 33-36 cm.
Habitat:


 Lives in swampy areas, e.g., the marshes of Marathon close to Athens (cp. Aristoph. Birds 246-49). Nowadays, almost everywhere in Greece exstinct but a small population survives on Cyprus.

Behaviour:

 Groundfeeder with a love for dustbaths. When disturbed, the francolin does not fly up but tries to sneak away and reach cover in dense vegetation.

Ancient Associations:

In antiquity, the francolin was sought after as a delicacy whose meat, according to a lost comedy by Aristophanes, "is the sweetest meat to cook at the victory feast" (Athenaeus 388B, from Aristophanes' Storks). In the Birds, Aristophanes also comically compares the "spottled" back of a runaway slave that has been caught and whipped with the plumage of a francolin and claims that such slaves were mockingly called "spottled francolin" (Birds 760-61).
Sources:

B. Bruun/ H. Delin/L. Svenson, Der Kosmos Vogelführer: Die Vögel Deutschlands und Europas, 10th ed. Stuttgart: Franck-Kosmos, 1993, p. 98.
S. Cramp et al., The Birds of the western Palearctic, vol. ii, 479-83.
D'Arcy W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Birds, London 1936 (repr. Hildesheim, 1966), pp. 59-61.

 

 

This site was created August 21, 2002.
For comments or suggestions, please mail Ortwin Knorr.