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



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

 introduced into Britain during the period of Román domination ; 

 yet, however thorougbly 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 domestie 

 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 animáis 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 conjinement, or turned loóse 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 ñame of Giiinea-íowl 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. África and 

 perhaps of Arabia (Ntjmida ptiloehyncha of Rüppell), received 

 by them vid Nubice.^ 



Next, 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 has begun to vary in colour as yet, as the semi-wild British 

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



f According to W. G. Browne's ' Travels in África,' &c. (1792 to 1798), p. 

 264, those birds were even then brought in cages, " aa 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 patrón of Afincan 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 descriptiou 

 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. A frican N. ptiloehtncha, 



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

 iudicated by an expi'ession of Columella, who notices its " paleam et cristam" 

 (pcak and crest) ; referring to the frontal crest of N. ptilokhyncha (whence 

 its ñame), which is utterly wanting in the bald-frontcd bird of Guinea, 



