372 GUINEA HEN. Class II. 



and have been very long naturalized in this 

 country; long before the arrival of the Romans 

 in this island, Cmsar informing us, they were 

 one of the forbidden foods of the old Britons. 

 These were in all probability imported here by 

 the Phoenicians, who traded to Britain, about 

 five hundred years before Christ. For all 

 other domestic fowls, turkies, geese, and ducks 

 excepted, we seem to be indebted to our con- 

 querors, the Romans. The wild fowl were all 

 our own from the period they could be sup- 

 posed to have reached us after the great event 

 of the flood. 

 Pheasants. Pheasants were first brought into Europe 

 from the banks of the Phasis, a river of Col- 

 chis. 



Argiva primum sum transportata carina, 

 Ante mihi notum nil, nisi Phasis erat. 



Martial, lib. xiii. ep. 72. 



Guinea Guinea hens, the Meleagrides or Gallince nu- 

 midic<z of the antients, came originally from 

 Africa.* We are much surprized how Belon 

 and other learned ornithologists could possibly 

 imagine them to have been the same with our 

 Turkies ; since the descriptions of the meleagri 



* Bosnian's history of Guinea. 248. Voyages de Marchais iii. 

 323. Barlot's descr. Guinea. Churchill's coll. voy. v. 2Q. 



