350 AVES. 



where sprinkled with small, white, round spots. Its noisy and 

 quarrelsome disposition render it a very unwelcome guest in 

 poultry-yards, although its flesh is excellent. In a wild state 

 they live in large flocks, and prefer the vicinity of marshes. 

 There are also two species, 



N. cristata and N. mitrata, Pall., Spic, IV, pi. ii and iii, fig. 

 1; Vieill. Galer., pi., ccix, in the first of which the head is 

 ornamented with a plumed crest, and in the second with a conical 

 helmet. A third has lately been discovered in which the helmet 

 is very small, and which has a small tuft on the base of the beak, 

 composed of short stems, almost without barbs. N. ptylorhyn- 

 cha, Licht. The great genus, 



Phasianus, Lin. 



Or that of the Pheasants, is characterized by the cheeks being 

 partly destitute of feathers, and covered with a red skin, and by the 

 tectiform tail, in which the feathers are variously disposed. We first 

 distinguish, 



Gallus, 



The Cock, in which the head is surmounted with a vertical and 

 fleshy crest, and each side of the lower mandible furnished with 

 fleshy wattles. The quills of the tail, fourteen in number, are ele- 

 vated on two vertical planes, placed back to back; the coverts of that 

 of the male are extended into an arch over the tail proper. The spe- 

 cies so common in our barn-yards, 



Phas. gallus, L.; Enl. 1 and 49 (The Common Cock and 

 Hen), varies infinitely as to colour, and even greatly as to sizej 

 in some races the crest is replaced by a tuft of feathers, or a 

 top-knot; in others the tarsi, and even the toes, are feathered; 

 in one race the crest, wattles, and periosteum of the whole skele- 

 ton are black, and in others, by a kind of monstrosity, we find 

 five, and even six toes, for several generations. 



Several species of wild Cocks are known. The first, 

 Gallus Sonneraiii, Tem. Col., 232 and 233 (The Jungle Cock), 

 was described by Sonnerat, Voy. II, Atl., 117, 118, and is very 

 remarkable for the feathers on the neck of the male, the stems 

 of which widen at the bottom into three successive disks of a 

 horny nature. The crest is denticulate. It is found in the 

 gauts of Hindostan. 



Two others have been brought from Java by M. Lechenaud, 

 one of which. Gall. JSankiva, Tem., has a denticulated crest like 

 the preceding; all the feathers of the neck being long, pendent, 

 and of the most beautiful golden red; it appears to me to bear 



