G A L L 1 N I D . 



varieties also occur, and a hybrid has been produced 

 between a male pintado and a domestic hen. The 

 young are pretty birds, somewhat resmbling red par- 

 tridges at an early age : the adult male is much 

 larger than the common cocK, and measures about 

 twenty-three inches in length ; the male has a loose 

 wattle of a bluish colour, but that of the female is red. 

 These birds in a wild state associate in numerous 

 flocks, manifesting a partiality to marshy and mo- 

 rassy situations, where they subsist almost wholly on 

 insects, worms, and seeds, laying about nine eggs, but 

 breeding probably more than once in the year. In 

 many of the scorching districts of Africa, in Numidia 

 for instance, they fly in troops during the day, and 

 perch at night on trees. They abound in the fertile 

 plains of Arabia, according to Niebuhr, and are so 

 numerous near Tahama, that the children knock them 

 down with stones and sell them in the town. In the 

 year 1508, vast numbers of them were transported to 

 America by the Genoese ; they have now so greatly 

 multiplied, and become so habituated to the climate, 

 that in the Spanish possessions they roam at liberty 

 in the midst of the savannahs and woods. They 

 sustain without injury the cold of our northern 

 climates, notwithstanding the great heat of their 

 native country, and might possibly be as successfully 

 introduced into our woods and parks as the pheasant ; 

 but it is very troublesome to get them to incubate and 

 rear the young in the poultry yard, as they frequently 

 desert their charge, and drop their eggs under hedges, 

 or in other concealed places. The hen pintado when 

 sufficiently fed will lay about one hundred eggs, if 

 care be always taken to leave one in the nest. The 

 eggs of the pintado are smaller than those of the 

 common fowl, of a rounder form, reddish white, ob- 

 scurely freckled with a darker colour, and are consi- 

 dered a very delicious morsel. As ancient and 

 modern epicures have boasted the flavour of this spe- 

 cies, it has been reared for the table in all ages, and 

 frequently by the intervention of the common, or of 

 the turkey hen, either of which proves a more vigi- 

 lant and careful nurse than the female pintado. 



When Guinea fowl are kept in a domestic state, 

 they do not seek their own food with the same assi- 

 duity as common poultry ; and thus they require 

 some attention in this respect, which adds to the ex- 

 pense of keeping. Once or twice a day they must 

 be regularly supplied with food, which consists of 

 buckwheat, barley, or millet ; they eat when in the 

 fields grasshoppers, worms, beetles, and ants, and cut 

 up and destroy the tender buds and flowers. They 

 cat considerably more than the common poultry, 

 probably, in consequence of the shorter length of their 

 intestines. A male pintado will serve for ten females. 

 The female generally lays at the latter end of May or 

 the beginning of June, and the eggs are usually from 

 eighteen to twenty-four in number : the shell of the 

 egg is of a yellowish white colour, spotted with small 

 brown points, and is very hard ; they are deposited 

 by the female in a retired place, under some bush ; 

 she seldom sits with any assiduity, nor when the 

 young are disclosed does she display any great affec- 

 tion for them ; it is therefore found more profitable to 

 have their eggs hatched by a common hen : the in- 

 cubation lasts three weeks, or rather better. As we 

 before hinted, the young are very delicate and diffi- 

 cult to bring up, requiring much attention in the 

 article of food ; they should be placed where there 

 are insects, and in a dry situation. On the top of the 



head, the casque, and the barbels of the lower jaw, arc 

 not distinguished before the birds are six or seven 

 months old. Near the time these appendages begin 

 to make their appearance, and the epoch is critical 

 for the young pintados, they become liable to mala- 

 dies, from which they cannot be preserved but by 

 great care and proper nourishment. A considerable 

 difference between the pintado hen and the cem- 

 mon one is, that the intestinal tube is much shorter in 

 proportion in the last, being but three feet long, with- 

 out reckoning the cceca, which are six inches each : 

 they proceed widening from their origin, and receive 

 the vessels of the mesentery, like the other intestines. 

 The largest intestine is the duodenum, which is more 

 than nine lines in diameter ; the gizzard is like that 

 of the hen, and small gravel stones are found there, as 

 in that bird ; indeed, nothing else is found there 

 sometimes, the consequence apparently of the animal 

 having died in a languishing state, and passed the 

 latter moments of its life without eating : the internal 

 membrane of the gizzard is very much wrinkled, and 

 very slightly adherent to the nervous tunic, and of a 

 corneous substance, or something very analogous to it. 



The crop is about the size of a tennis-ball when in- 

 flated ; the intermediate canal between the crop and 

 gizzard is of a harder and whiter substance than that 

 part of the intestinal tube which precedes the crop, and 

 does not exhibit nearly so great a number of apparent 

 vessels : the heart is more pointed than it is com- 

 monly found in birds, the lungs are as usual ; it has, 

 however, been remarked in some subjects, that on 

 blowing into the trachea, to put the lungs and air- 

 vessels in motion, that the pericardium, which appears 

 more loose than usual, became inflated as well as the 

 lungs. In the cavity of the thorax, the trachea re- 

 ceives two small muscular cords, about an inch long, 

 and two-thirds of a line broad, which are implanted 

 there on each side. These two muscles adhering on 

 one side to the bottom of the trachea, and on the 

 other to the clavicles, are peculiar to all the species of 

 gallinids ; they serve to keep the trachea fixed to the 

 middle of the aperture of the thorax : the lower part 

 of the trachea, and the lower larynx of the pintados, 

 differ very considerably from these same parts in 

 cocks and pheasants. The entire tube of the trachea 

 in the pintados, from the glottis to the distance of an 

 inch from the lower larynx, is formed of complete 

 rings, in the intervals between which are membranes. 

 This part of the trachea is susceptible of being 

 elongated or shortened by two pair of muscles, which 

 accompany it through its whole length ; but at the 

 distance of an inch from the lower larynx the rings 

 are broad, perfectly cylindrical, and soldered as it 

 were one upon the other. On each side of this tube 

 towards the lower part are five membranes, which are 

 followed by three rings of the lower larynx, from 

 which the bronchiae depend. These last are formed 

 of flat semi-rings, which gradually diminish in length ; 

 there are thus some imperfections connected with the 

 Guinea fowl as an inhabitant of the poultry yard ; 

 but where elegance and variety, as well as mer 

 profit, are objects of consideration, it can be advan- 

 tageously introduced. 



The crested Guinea fowl (N. cristata) is chiefly- 

 known as an African bird. It is less in size than the 

 common Guinea fowl : the bill is horn colour, fur- 

 nished at the base of the upper mandible with * blu- 

 ish cere in which the nostrils are placed. It lias no 

 carunculated appendage to the lower mandible like 



