THE BLACK GUINEA-FOWLS. $$ 



Tarsus in male armed with a short bkint spur. 

 Only one species is known. 



L THE BLACK GUINEA-FOWL. PHASIDUS NIGER. 



Phasidiis niger, Cassin, Proc. Acad. Philad. 1856, p. 322 ; id. J. 

 Ac. Philad. (2) p. 7, pi. 3 (1858) ; Elliot, Monogr. Phasian. 

 ii. pi. 36 (1872) ; Rochebr. Act. Soc. Linn. Bord. xxxviii. 

 p. 356: pi. xxii. (1884); Ogilvie Grant, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. 

 xxii. p. 373 (1S93). 

 Adult Male. — A band of feathers along the middle of the 

 head, black ; general colour and rest of plumage blackish- 

 brown, finely mottled with dark brown. Naked skin of head 

 and neck Naples-yellow, shading into orange-yellow on the 

 throat and lower parts of the neck. Total length, 16-5 inches ; 

 wing, 88; tail,- 5*5 ; tarsus, 27. 



Adult Female. — Similar to the male, but without spurs. 

 Range, — West Africa, from Cape Lopez to Loango. 

 Habits. — The Black Guinea-Fowl is one of the rarest of the 

 Game-Birds. Even in the British Museum collection there 

 are only two examples of it, and neither of these are per 

 feet specimens, the middle tail-feathers in both being absent. 

 Mr. Du ChaiUu, the original discoverer of this remarkable bird, 

 gives the foUowing brief account :— " One day I went out hunt- 

 ing by myself, and, to my great joy, shot another new bird, a 

 black wild fowl, one of the most singular birds I have seen in 

 Africa. . . . The head, where it is bare, is in the female 

 of a pink hue, and in the male of a bright scarlet.! .... 

 When I saw this bird for the first time in the woods I thouglit 

 I saw before me a domestic chicken. The natives have noticed 

 the resemblance, too, as their name for it shows, couba iga, 



* Cassin gives the length of the tail as 6'o inches. 



t It will be noted that the colours of the naked skin here given do not 

 agree with those given in the description above. I am unable to say which 

 is correct. 



