202 OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



The name " guinea " comes from the country of Guinea in 

 Africa, from which the birds were introduced into America and 

 Western Europe. The male guinea fowl is called a guinea cock ; 

 the female, a guinea hen ; the young, guinea chickens. 



Origin. The guinea fowl is a native of Africa. It is said that 

 there are about a dozen similar species on that continent. This 

 species is abundant there in both the wild and the domesticated 

 state, and also in a half -wild state. It was probably brought into 

 partial domestication at a very early date, for it was known to 

 the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as to the early civi- 

 lized nations of Northern Africa. It may have been distributed 



FIG. 165. White guinea fowls 



through Western Europe by the Romans. According to one 

 account, some English monks had guineas in the thirteenth 

 century. It is likely that they were rare in Europe at that time 

 and soon disappeared, for the modern Europeans had never seen 

 them until they were taken to Europe from the West Indies, 

 where, it is said, they had been brought by slave ships from 

 Africa. There is a tradition that the first guineas in America 

 were brought direct from Africa with the first cargo of slaves 

 from that continent. In the West Indies and in South America 

 the guinea, after its introduction, ran wild. The natural color 

 of the species is a bluish-gray with many small, round white 

 spots on each feather. On the flight feathers of the wings 

 these spots are so placed that they form irregular bars. 



