PINTADO. 145 



is sparingly beset with hairy feathers, and the skin, which appears 

 between, is bluish ash-colour; the lower part of the neck is feathered, 

 and inclines more to violet; the rest of the plumage black, marked 

 with round white spots of different sizes, and crossed in the inter- 

 mediate spaces with grey lines, the wings and tail not excepted ; legs 

 greyish brown. The female has the wattles rather less in size, and 

 red, which in the male are inclined to blue. 



The native place of this bird is on all hands allowed to be Africa,* 

 and is the Meleagris of old authors ; it is, however, supposed to have 

 been originally from Nubia,f and esteemed in the Roman banquets ; 

 met with in flocks of two or three hundred, by various travellers. 

 Dampier found them in numbers in the Island of Mayo, J and 

 Forster speaks of them, as being in plenty at St. Jago :|| are common 

 in various parts about the Cape of Good Hope, being found in the 

 road from Zee Cow River, to near Sunday River, in flocks, and are 

 very shy and cautious ; fly low, and straight forwards, like our 

 Partridges, and although they perch in the night together on trees, 

 they appear to get the greatest part of the food on the ground, and 

 Mr. Sparrman once met with such numbers at roost, that he killed 

 six of them at one shot, and wounded several others ; the flesh, 

 however, in his opinion, was dry, and much inferior to that of the 

 Common Hen. 



M. Levaillant gives much the same account, as being in great 

 plenty about Droog Riviere ; but adds, that when frightened from 



* Africae hoc est Gallinarum Genus, gibberum, variis sparsum plumis, quae novissimae 

 sunt peregrinarum avium in mensas receptee propter ingratum virus. — Plin. 1.x. chap. 26. 

 Mnesias Africae locum Sycionem appellatum, et Cratin amnern in oceanum effluentem e lacu 

 in quo aves quas Meleagridas et Penelopas vocat, vivere. — Plin. lib. 37. cap. ii. 



t Hasselquist; from whence he says also, Apes, Parrots, &c. are brought to Cairo, and 

 other parts of Africa ; met with in the plains of Zarai and Admara, in Abyssinia, in plenty. 

 Valent. Voy. iii. p. 4. 



X Damp. Voy. iii. pt. 1. p. 23. || Voy. p. 39, 



VOL. VIII. U 



