[ } 



Now Ovid is known to be very accurate in the defcription of 

 the animals into which every one is changed h ; and yet, of the 

 only three circumftances mentioned in this defcription, two of 

 them are not the leaft applicable to the Guiney hen, for this 

 bird hath very mort wings, and confequently feldom takes any 

 flights. Even the third circumftance of corneaque ora facit per- 

 haps implies nothing more than the change of the human mouth 

 into a bird's bill. 



Varro fpeaks of the Meleagris after mention of the Galllna 

 ruftica, which he. fays was then rare at Rome, and fcarcely ever 

 feen but in a cage. He then obferves that they are like the African 

 hens, afpeffu ac facie incontaminatd ', which brings him to the 

 defcription of the 'Gallina Africana ; Gallinae Africanae fuut 

 granges, varise, gibberae quas ^Xeoifpi^g appellant Graeci. 



Now when the refemblance to fowls is mentioned, it certainly 

 cannot be faid of the Guiney hen, that they are comparatively 

 large, or grandes. 



Columella thus alludes to the meleagris : 



Africana eft, (quam plerique Numidicam dicunt) Meleagridi 

 f mills, niii quod rutilam galeam & criftam in capite gerit quae 

 utraque funt in Meleagride ccsruiea^." Now a Guinea hen hath 

 neither creft nor comb ; and as for the horny nob on its head, 

 it is red and not blue. Columella by this pafTage likewife only 

 fays, that the African hen is like the meleagris, except as to the 

 colour of its creft and comb, and not that it is the fame bird. 



h I iliould therefore wilh, that if an elegant edition of the Metamor- 

 phofes Ihould be printed, it might be beautified and illuitrated by co- 

 loured engravings from fpecimens in Sir Aflitori Lever's moft capital 

 Mufeum. 



1 De Re Ruftica, L iii. c. 9. I muft own that I have no clear idea of 

 what Varro means by facie uicoraaminatd. 

 h Columella de Re Ruftica, 1. viii. c. 2. 



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