386 Notes on the Races of Rein Deer. [No. 4, 



even be possible. The Common Pheasant, for example, was probably 

 introduced into Britain during the period of Roman domination ; 

 yet, however thoroughly naturalized to the country (for the amount 

 of acclimatization in this instance is inconsiderable), and also however 

 tameable, it certainly manifests no tendency to become a domestic 

 bird, like the ordinary Common Fowl or the Turkey. It will not 

 attach itself to a home-stead. " The practical results," we are told, 

 " of reproduction and acclimatization have been so entirely lost sight 

 of for ages, that the Turkey in 1524, the Musk Duck in 1650, the 

 Gold Pheasant in 1725, and the Silver Pheasant in 1740, are the 

 only additions to our catalogue of domesticated animals since the 

 Christian sera." Surely the Gold and Silver Pheasants cannot be 

 justly termed domesticated, although tame, and the races permanently 

 maintained either in strict confinement, or turned loose into preserves.* 

 Most assuredly they are not likely to become free denizens of the 

 poultry-yard ; like the Guinea-fowl, the domestication of which is 

 really of comparatively modern date. Its name of Guinea-fowl indi- 

 cates the indigenous abode of the particular species, a country 

 unknown to the Greeks and Romans ; whose Meleagris and Gallina 

 numidica (quasi nubica ?) referred to the species of N. E. Africa and 

 perhaps of Arabia (Numida ptilobhyncha of Ruppell), received 

 by them via JSFubicc.f 



Nest, of the two other instances cited, — the Turkey and the Musk 

 Duck — it is remarkable that both of these were found by the Spanish 

 discoverers already domesticated in the New World. This Schlegel 



* Neither of them lias begun to vary in colour as yet, as the semi-wild British 

 Pheasant often does, to the same extent as the tame Guinea-fowl. 



f According to W. G. Browne's ' Travels in Africa,' &c. (1792 to 179S), p. 

 264, those birds were even then brought in cages, " as a profitable commodity," 

 to Cairo from Darfour ; and doubtless therefore at the present day also, as like- 

 wise in ancient times. There is no reason to suppose that the Romans domes- 

 ticated them, even though they may have kept many in captivity. Prince John 

 of Portugal, the famous patron of African discovery (but more probably one of 

 his successors), has the credit of first introducing and multiplying the modernly 

 domesticated species from Guinea; and the earliest known distinctive description 

 of it is that by Dr. Caius (1570), in which the purple colour of the neck is men- 

 tioned, which will not apply to the E. African N. ptiloehyncha. 



That the E. African bird was that known to the Romans is further distinctly 

 indicated by an expression of Columella, who notices its " paleam et cristam" 

 (peak and crest) ; referring to the frontal crest of N. ptilobhyncha (whence 

 its name), which is utterly wanting in the bald-fronted bird of Guinea, 



