The Bearded Partridge was, according to Gould, the Asian counterpart of the well known Grey or Common Partridge in Europe. Large numbers of partridges were trapped in Mongolia and sold in the Chinese city markets. In 1811 the naturalist, P.S. Pallas, saw the partridges in the Altai Mountains where they gathered in autumn among the rocks exposed to the sun. They passed the winter in coveys, often under the snow. In 1863, Jules Verreaux described this species as barbata from an adult male specimen obtained near Nerchinsk, eastern Russia.
This partridge differs from the Common Partridge by its smaller size, long cheek plumes, and the male's sandy-buff breast and black horeshoe-shaped mark on the abdomen. The female is similar in colouring but has a paler breast and only a trace of the black abdomen mark.
The partridges are depicted lifesize.
P.S. Pallas, Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica, II, p.78
J. Verreaux and O. des Murs, Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1863, p.62 and p.371, pl.XI
DISTRIBUTION: Central Asia from Kirghiz steppes and eastern Kazakhstan north and east to Altai, southern Siberia, Mongolia and northern China