272 F. Finn — General Notes on Variation in Birds. [No. 3, 



The young are all white in the down and first feather, with a pink 

 flush on the wings ; hut the young cocks soon become dark. The variety 

 has been abundantly shown by Darwin to arise in either sex as a sport 

 from the type in domestication ; it seems in one instance to have occur- 

 red wild. It is smaller and weaker than typical birds, and not a match 

 for them ; yet when they are allowed to interbreed indiscriminately the 

 black- winged form swamps the other. Mr. Castang tells me that black- 

 winged birds will throw back to the type, but generally speaking the 

 variety breeds true. 



The Guinea-fowl (Numida mehagris), although so recently domes- 

 ticated, varies a great deal. I have discussed the colour-variations in 

 Nature (June 5th, J 902, p. 126). Since then I have seen two or three of 

 a type I had only previously seen in one pied bird, i.e., lavender without 

 spots. I find self-coloured birds of this type have barred primaries 

 like the dark-purplish self-coloured birds. 



Mr. L. Wright (he. cit. infra) says that pied birds are the result of 

 crossing white and coloured specimens. 



There is also a form with white ground-colour and dark spots, but 

 this I have never seen. (L. Wright's Illustrated Booh of Poultry, Cassell 

 & Co., 1890, p. 511). In all the forms the white of the lower cheeks 

 invades most of the sides of the head and neck ; and in most birds, even 

 the normally coloured ones, the toes and more or less of the shanks are 

 orange yellow. The white of the face also often invades the wattles, and 

 both these and the face may be stained with blue. 



The loose naked skin of the throat is much more developed in 

 Indian than in English Guinea-fowls, often forming a dewlap an inch 

 deep, and frequently coloured a bright sky-blue instead of dull 

 purple. 



I procured some time ago a normally-coloured male specimen with 

 a pendulous throat-tuft of feathers coloured like the adjacent feathered 

 part of the neck, of a plain purplish-slate. 



The Turkey {Mehagris gallopavo) of Mexico was found domesticated 

 when the Spaniards invaded America, and very soon was kept in Europe. 

 It has not been bred selectively till lately. 



The colour-variations in domestication are few and well-defined. 

 The typical bronze form is not very common in Europe ; and in India 

 I have only seen it once in seven years' residence. This bird in colour 

 exactly resembled the plate of this species in Elliot's Monograph of the 

 Phasianidx. The commonest type is one in which the bronze part of 

 the plumage is replaced by black, bronze only in certain lights, the brown 

 aud white markings being retained. 



The pure black form is also not uncommon. 



