258 cassell's book of birds. 



The GUINEA FOWLS [Numida) form a gi'oup distinguishable by a horn-like crest on the crown 

 of the head, and two fleshy lappets that depend from the lower mandible. Near Fuentes, in St. Jago, 

 the chief of the Cape Verde Islands, Darwin met with these beautiful birds in large flocks. They were 

 extremely wary, and could not be approached, running away like Partridges on a rainy day, with their 

 heads cocked up, and if pursued readily took wing. " The discovery of a nest of wild Guinea Fowl," 

 says that writer, " was an incident that enlivened a peculiarly toilsome part of the journey, the passage 

 through a long but narrow watercourse, now dry, filled with masses of loose slippery stone, almost 

 impassable for a horse. In the midst of a thick tuft of grass, within a wood, beside this rocky path, a 

 Guinea Hen had deposited her brood of twenty eggs." 



Ellis, in his " Three Visits to Madagascar," says, "Among the companions of my journey was an 

 officer, attended by a slave carrying in a neatly-made wicker cage a pair of perfectly white Guinea 

 Fowls, as a great rarity, and a present from the chief of a distant province to the prince." In reference 

 to this statement, Hartlaub tells us that he considers the Guinea Fowls of Madagascar to be specifically 

 different from such as are natives of Africa. 



THE COMMON GUINEA FOWL. 

 The Common Guinea Fowl {Numida mdcagris), the species from which our domestic bird is 

 derived, when in its wild state, has the breast and nape unspotted lilac, and the back and rump grey, 

 enlivened by small white dots, surrounded with a dark line. On the upper wing-covers these spots 

 increase in size, and merge into narrow stripes on the outer webs of the secondary quills ; the under side 

 is greyish black, adorned with large round spots ; the quills are brownish, streaked with white on the 

 outer, and irregularly dotted and marked on the inner web ; the dark grey tail-feathers are beautifully 

 spotted, anl those at the exterior partially striped. The broad lappets and comb are red, the eye is 

 dark brown, the region of the cheek and the crest blueish white, the beak reddish horn-grey, the foot 

 dull grey, and the toes flesh-colour. When tamed and reared, this species produces a race of much 

 larger birds ; these have the plumage very variously marked, and occasionally are entirely of a whitish 

 or reddish hue. 



THE MITRED PINTADO. 



The Mitred Pintado {Numida mitratd) has the horn-like excrescence on the head much 

 developed, and the chin-lappets narrow and long. The pale black plumage is spotted with white ; the 

 feathers on the nape and throat are striped with greyish white, the secondary quills have the outer web 

 partially streaked with white. The eye is greyish brown ; the upper part of the head and base of the 

 beak are bright red, a crescent-shaped patch behind the eye, the hinder part of the neck, and the throat 

 are greenish blue, shaded with dark blue ; the fleshy lappets are violet at the base and bright red at the 

 tip ; the comb or horn is pale yellow, the beak greyish yellow, and the foot blackish blue. This species 

 is twenty-two inches long, the wing measures ten and the tail seven inches. The Mitred Pintado is 

 found, though not abundantly, in Madagascar and Guinea, but is common in Mozambique and in 

 Abyssinia. We learn from Layard that its habitat extends over the whole of the frontier district, into 

 Ovampolando on the west, and to the Mozambique on the east, and that it is still abundant in some 

 places within the colony, where the mimosa bush affords it sufficient shelter. It feeds on grain and 

 insects, and lays from seven to ten eggs, rather sharply pointed at the small and rounded at the 

 obtuse end. These are of a dark cream-colour, minutely dotted over vifith pin-points of brown. 



The same authority tells us that these Guinea Fowls rear their young much in the same manner 

 as our Pheasants do. If the female is startled she flies off and leaves her little family, who at once 

 disperse in every direction, and hide so cunningly amongst the grass and bushes that they are seldom 

 discovered : they usually remain in their concealment until called together again by the shrill note of 



