14.0 Guinea-Fowls. 



distance, then alight, and trust to their rapid mode of 

 running, and their dexterity in threading the mazes of 

 brushwood and dense herbage, for security. They are 

 shy, wary, and alert. 



It is not much kept, its habits being wandering, and 

 requiring an extensive range, but as it picks up nearly all 

 its food, and is very prolific, it may be made very profitable 

 in certain localities. The whole management of both the 

 young and the old may be precisely the same as that of 

 turkeys, in hatching, feeding, and fattening. This 

 "species," says Mr. Dickson, "differs from all other 

 poultry, in its being difficult to distinguish the cock from 

 the hen, the chief difference being in the colour of the 

 Avattles, which are more of a red hue in the cock, and more 

 tinged with blue in the hen. The cock has also a more 

 stately strut." 



They mate in pairs, and therefore an equal number 

 of cocks and hens must be kept, or the eggs will prove 

 unfertile. To obtain stock, some of their eggs must be 

 procured, and placed under a common hen ; for if old 

 birds are bought, they will wander away for miles in 

 search of their old home, and never return. They should 

 be fed regularly, and must always have one meal at night, 

 or they will scarcely ever roost at home. They ^\\\\ not 

 sleep in the fowl-house, but prefer roosting in the lower 

 branches of a tree, or on a thick bush, and retire early. 

 They make a peculiar, harsh, querulous noise, which is 

 oft-repeated, and not agreeable. The hens are prolific 

 layers, beginning in May, and continuing during the 

 whole summer. Their eggs are small, but of excellent 

 flavour, of a pale yellowish red, finely dotted with a darker 

 tint, and remarkable for the hardness of the shell. The 

 hen usually lays on a dry bank, in secret places ; and 

 a hedgerow a quarter of a mile oflf is quite as likely to 

 contain her nest as any situation nearer her home. She 

 is very shy, and, if the eggs are taken from her nest, will 

 desert it, and find another ; a few should, therefore, always 

 be left, and it should never be visited when she is in sight. 

 But she often contrives to elude all watching, and hatch 



