CHAPTER XII 

 GUINEAS 



Description. The guinea, or guinea fowl, is about the size of 

 a small fowl. It is very much like the fowl in some respects 

 but not at all like it in some others. Naturalists classify it in 

 the pheasant family, but its present place in domestication is so 

 different from that of the pheasant that a poultry keeper hardly 

 ever associates them in his thought. In appearance the guinea 

 is a unique bird. The shape of the body and shape of the head 

 are both peculiar. The body is quite plump, the back nearly 

 horizontal, and the tail short and much depressed. The neck 

 and legs are rather short. The feathers of the neck are short, 

 and the head is bare. The skin of the head and face is a 

 bluish-white. The bird has a small, knoblike red comb and 

 short, stiff, red wattles projecting from the cheeks. The plumage 

 of the body is quite long, loose, and soft, and lies so smoothly 

 that it appears much shorter and closer than it is. 



The male and female are of nearly the same size, and so like 

 in appearance that the sex cannot be distinguished with certainty 

 by any external character. The comb and wattles of the male are 

 sometimes conspicuously larger than those of the female, but this 

 difference is not regular. Although the voices of the male and 

 female are different, the difference is not easily described, nor 

 is it readily detected except by people who are familiar with the 

 birds, and whose ears are trained to distinguish the different 

 notes. Both sexes make a rapid, sharp, clattering sound, and 

 also a shrill cry of two notes. The cry of the male is harsher 

 and has a more aggressive tone ; that of the female has a some- 

 what plaintive sound, which some people describe as like the 

 words " come back, come back." 



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