THE TURKEY 71 



of the bird being like those of the gold pheasant in form, 

 although its colours are far more delicate, harmonious, 

 and refined. The longest tail of all is met with in 

 Reeves's pheasant, the tail feathers of which bird may 

 exceed seven feet. 



Besides pheasants, certain curious birds called trago- 

 pans are found in India and Southern China. They are 

 often spoken of as " horned," because of a soft piece of 

 fleshy substance, shaped like a finger, which is attached 

 to the side of the head on each side behind each eye. It 

 is of different colours in different species of tragopans, 

 and, though it ordinarily hangs down, it can be erected, 

 when the bird really seems as if it had a pair of horns. 

 A piece of distensible flesh also hangs down in front of 

 the throat. 



Now, all the birds (apart from the turkey) yet 

 mentioned namely, the fowls, peacocks, pheasants and 

 tragopans have long been recognised by naturalists as 

 being birds near akin, and so they have been spoken of 

 as gallinaceous birds, from the generic name gattus, long 

 ago assigned to the most familiar kind, the fowl. 



The birds just described are all Asiatic forms, but 

 when we cross the Isthmus of Suez or the Red Sea into 

 Africa, we bid adieu to every one of them ; yet although 

 we meet there with no peacock, fowl, or pheasant, we do 

 meet with a small group of peculiar forms which are 

 allied to them in nature, however different they may be 

 in aspect. These African gallinaceous birds are the 

 Guinea fowls, a variety of species of which range from 

 northern to southern Africa and into the great Island 

 of Madagascar. None of them approaches the phea- 

 sants in beauty of plumage or in grace of form, and every 

 one knows the sobriety of tint of that Guinea fowl which 

 has been introduced into our farm-yards. Yet some 



