GAME BIRDS OF THE PROTECTORATES 67 
which is much smaller and nearly conical. The feathers of the 
lower parts of the neck and the upper chest are finely barred 
with black and white. Top of the head scarlet, helmet paler, 
rest of the naked skin of the neck and face bright blue, wattles 
blue, tipped with red : legs and feet brown, bill greenish- 
horn-colour, becoming reddish at the base. 
Length 20 inches, wing 10*5 inches, tail 6*2 inches, tarsus 
3*2 inches. 
NUMIDA PTILORHYNCHA 
Numida ptilorhyncha, Licht. 
‘ Ogil vie- Grant’s Cat. Birds Brit. Mus.’ Vol. XXII, page 379. 
‘ Sharpe’s Hand-List,’ Vol. I, page 42. ‘ Shelley’s Birds of 
Africa,’ Vol. I, page 183. ‘ Reichenow’s Vogel Afrikas,’ Vol. I, 
page 445. 
The Abyssinian Helmeted Guinea-fowl ranges from 
Elmenteita northwards and westward to the foot-hills of 
Ruwenzori. It may be easily distinguished from Reichenow’s 
bird by having a horny brushlike excrescence at the base 
of the upper mandible, and by the wattles being blue and not 
tipped with red. It is probably the most plentiful of all the 
guinea-fowls. On the banks of the Turkwel river, on one 
occasion in January 1890, I came across a large pack in which 
there could not have been less than two thousand birds, 
massed together feeding. 
It resembles N. reichenowi, but differs both from it and from 
N. mitrata in having a bunch of horny bristles at the base of the 
culmen. The upper half of the neck is thinly covered with black 
feathers, and the margins of the outer webs of the secondaries 
are finely vermiculated with black and white ; the white spots 
of the greater secondary coverts are more or less confluent, and 
form oblique white bands. Bare skin of the neck, face, and 
wattles, blue ; helmet and bristles pale brownish-horn-colour, 
feet dark horn-colour. 
Length 19 inches, wing 11 inches, tail 6*4 inches, tarsus 
3*2 inches. 
The birds that are found on the Northern Uaso Nyiro have 
much longer helmets than those found in the Rift Valley. 
