400 GUINEA FOWL 



(for there is apparently no evidence of its domestication being con- 

 tinuous from the time of the Romans) be assigned more than 

 roughly to that of the African discoveries of the Portuguese.^ It 

 does not seem to have been commonly known till the middle of the 

 16 th century, when Caius sent a description and figure, with the 

 name of Gallus Mauritanus, to Gesner, who published both in his 

 Faralijpomena in 1555, and in the same year Belon also gave a notice 

 and woodcut under the name of Poulle de la Guin4e ; but while the 

 former authors properly referred their bird to the ancient Meleagris, 

 the latter confounded the Meleagris and the Turkey. 



The ordinary Guinea Fowl of our poultry-yards is the Numida 

 meleagris of ornithologists, and is too common a bird to need 

 description. The chief or only changes which domestication seems 

 to have induced in its appearance are a tendency to albinism 

 generally shewn in the plumage of its lower parts, and frequently, 

 though not always, the conversion of the colour of its legs and feet 

 from dark greyish-brown to bright orange. That the home of this 

 species is West Africa from the Gambia - to the Gaboon is certain, 

 but its range in the interior is quite unknown. It appears to have 

 been imported early into the Cape Verd Islands, where, as also in 

 some of the Greater Antilles and in Ascension, it has run wild. 

 Representing the species in South Africa we have N. coronata, which 

 is very numerous from the Cape Colony to Ovampoland, and N. 

 cornuta of Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub, which replaces it in the west 

 as far as the Zambesi. Madagascar also has its pecrJiar species, 

 distinguishable by its red crown, the N. viitrata of PaUas, a name 

 which has often been misapplied to the last. This bird has been 

 introduced to Rodriguez, where it is now found wild. Abyssinia 

 is inhabited by another species, the N. ptilorhijncha,^ which differs 

 from all the foregoing by the absence of any red colouring about 

 the head. Very different from all of them, and the finest species 

 known, is the N. vulturina of Zanzibar, conspicuous by the bright 

 blue in its plumage, the hackles that adorn the lower part of its 

 neck, and its long tail. By some writers it is thought to form a 

 separate genus, Acryllium. All these Guinea Fowls are charac- 

 terized by having the crown bare of feathers and elevated into a 

 bony "helmet," but there is another group (to which the name 



^ Edwards, writing about 1760 {Gleanings, ii. p. 269), says that "Guiney 

 Hens, which were shewn as rarities when I was a boy, are now become a common 

 doniestick Fowl in England." 



- Specimens from the Gambia are said to be smaller, and have been described 

 as distinct under the name of N. rendallL 



2 Mr. Darwin {Anim. and PI. wonder Domestication, i. p. 294) gives this as the 

 original stock of our modern domestic birds, but herein I venture to think he has 

 been misled. As before observed, it may possibly have been the true fxeXfaypis 

 of the Greeks. 



