THE GUINEA FOWL. 175 



has food in its stomach or not.) to produce exhaustion 

 of the vital powers, for want of the necessary aliment. 

 Young turkeys, as soon as they once feel languid, 

 from this cause, efuse their food when it is at last 

 offered to them, (just like a man whose appetite is 

 gone, in consequence of having waited too long for his 

 dinner,) never would eat more, were it not forced 

 down their throats, by which operation they may 

 frequently be recovered ; but the little Gruinea fowls 

 give no notice of this faintness, till they are past all 

 cure ; and the struggle of a few minutes shows that 

 they have, indeed, outgrown their strength, or rather 

 that the material for producing strength, has not been 

 supplied to them in a degree commensurate with their 

 growth. 



A dry, sunny corner in the garden will be the best 

 place to coop them with their Bantam mother. As 

 they increase in strength, they will do no harm, but 

 a great deal of good, by devouring worms, grubs cat- 

 erpillars, maggots, and all sorts of insects. By the 

 time their bodies are little bigger than those of spar- 

 rows, they will be able to fly with some degree of 

 strength ; and it is very pleasing to see them essay 

 the use of their wings at the call of their fostermoth- 

 er, or the approach of their feeder. It is one out of 

 millions of instances of the Provident Wisdom of the 

 Almighty Great , that the wing and tail feathers of 

 young gallinaceous birds, with which they require to 

 be furnished, at the earliest possible time, as a means 

 of escape from their numerous enemies, exhibit the 

 most rapid growth of any part of their frame. Other 

 additions to their complete stature are successively 

 and less immediately developed. The wings of a 

 chicken are soon fledged enough to be of great assist- 

 ance to it ; the spurs, comb, and ornamental plumage 

 do not appear till quite a subsequent period. 



When the young Gruinea fowls are about the size of 

 quails, or perhaps a little larger, their mother Bantam, 

 (which we suppose to be a tame, quiet, matronly crea- 



