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CHAPTER XXXII. 



THE GUINEA FOWL. 



Under the general head of Guinea fowls, or the genus Numida, naturalists have grouped many 

 so-called varieties ; but it is very doubtful whether these are even so distinct as the various races 

 of ordinary domestic poultry. The fact that all belong to some part of Africa alone makes a 

 common origin almost certain ; and although there is no doubt that the various kinds breed true, 

 that is no more than can be said of the Spanish, Poland, or other common domestic fowls. 

 Many of these sub-races have been crossed, and we believe in every case the progeny have proved 

 fertile, which most naturalists consider evidence of at least close identity ; though the whole 

 question of species and what constitutes species needs much more in the way of investigation than 

 it has ever yet received. 



Of these various races of Guinea fowls, some have a peculiar bony helmet on the top of the 

 head, while others have this replaced by a crest of feathers, the shape and size of which crest 

 varies in different so-called varieties ; and in a third variety which does appear to have some real 

 distinctiveness, there is neither crest nor helmet, and such a resemblance to the vulture generally 

 that the bird has been graphically termed the Vulturine Guinea Fowl. Of the first or helmeted 

 group Mr. Elliot and other naturalists have described some half-dozen varieties, but in our opinion 

 several of these are practically identical. The Common Guinea Fowl of West Africa, or Nmnida 

 meleagris, has for a long time been regarded as the original of our domestic race, though some 

 authorities lately have objected to this view, on the ground that as the bird is admitted to have 

 been known to the Romans, and they had more intercourse with the Egyptian side of the great 

 African continent than with the western, one of the varieties common in Abyssinia is more likely 

 to have been the original. We think the common view by far the more likely to be correct. Not 

 only is the name entitled to some weight in a case of this kind, but when residing at Bristol, 

 which is a considerable centre of the West African trade, we have on several occasions seen 

 Guinea fowls perched on the rigging of African vessels, which had been brought from the coast 

 by sailors ; and in every case these birds were obviously identical with the domestic breed, both 

 in head and plumage. 



The Vulturine Royal Guinea Fowl, as it is called, certainly does present very peculiar and 

 singular characteristics. The neck and tail are very long in comparison with the common variety, 

 and the other points have been described as follows : — The head and upper part of the throat are 

 destitute of feathers, but sprinkled with hairs of a black colour, which are longest on the neck ; the 

 nape is thickly clothed with short, velvet-like, brown down ; and the lower part of the neck 

 ornamented with long, lanceolate, and flowing feathers, having a broad stripe of white down the 

 centre, to which on each side succeeds a line of dull black, finely dotted with white, and margined 

 with fine blue. The feathers of the inferior part of the back are of similar form, but broader, with a 

 narrower line of white down the centre, and with the minute white dots disposed in irregular and 

 obliquely transverse lines. The wing-coverts, back, rump, tail, under tail-covcrts, and thighs, are 



