Xf:- AN EVOLUTIONIST IN EAST AFRICA. 745 



masculine attire. The Muscovy duck itself varies somewhat from 

 the type we are accustomed to in England. I have seen specimens 

 with the bare red face enormously developed into warty caruncles 

 rising on each side over the eye above the level of the crown, like the 

 eye wattle of a Barb pigeon, and extending to the base of the lower 

 mandible. Yet others, apparently adult, had the red confined to a 

 small area at the base of the beak, and showing little, if at all, round 

 the eyes. With these there were specimens with an average 

 development of red skin, so that the variation in such different 

 directions is difficult to account for. 



The fowls met with were equally interesting. In Naples, at 

 Pore Said and Suez, and in East Africa, they showed signs of com- 

 plete panmixis in the various colours they displayed ; yet the form 

 and comb were in every case characteristic, suggesting forcibly that 

 many of our breeds have in the first instance made themselves, as it 

 were. In Naples, most of the hens to be seen about the street were 

 of the Leghorn and Minorca type, carrying, whatever their colour, a 

 large " single " comb, lopping over to one side. The fowls from Port 

 Said and Suez were barely of the size of Hamburgs, meagre and 

 skinny, with erect tails, and combs which were bifid either pos- 

 teriorly or altogether, while of moderate size. The hind toe in these 

 fowls was also often bifid. In Zanzibar the prevalent breed of fowl 

 was the Malay, tall and gaunt, with a neck so closely feathered as to 

 suggest, in the hens, a heron's, and the comb small in the cock and a mere 

 rudiment in the hen. Elsewhere on the African coast there are 

 fowls quite European in type, except for the hens' rudimentary 

 combs ; I therefore think the Malays are of Indian origin. A 

 very ridiculous-looking variety which occasionally occurred, has 

 the long neck of the ordinary breed without the long legs, these 

 members being unusually short. Tailless fowls were common, 

 but the tail seemed to be merely very short or soft, the feathers 

 being defective, not the caudal vertebrae, as in the rumpless 

 breed. Frizzled specimens, with the feathers reversed, might 

 also be seen. The fowls appear to be very scantily fed, and 

 no doubt become somewhat predaceous, as I saw one carrying 

 off a snake about its own length, dead, and so mangled as to 

 be useless as a specimen. With the freedom of breeding that 

 exists among the poultry here, one would expect reversion, but 

 as a matter of fact the colour of Gallus bankiva is not by any means 

 that most commonly seen. 



The goats are as interesting as the poultry, on account of the 

 great variety in colour and form they exhibit. Some are extremely 

 antelopine in colour and markings ; and as to form, I once saw 

 white specimens with a head and neck so gazelle-like, that I at first 

 mistook one for an albino gazelle. On board the " Juba " there was one 

 of the smooth-haired African sheep, which in its close brown coat also 

 recalled an antelope. A collection of the horns of the Zanzibar goats- 



