248 
GUINEA FOWL. 
We purposely pass over the breeding and rearing 
of Guinea Fowl, with only a very few observations, 
our experience being, that it is a bird which retains 
too much of its original wild nature to be bred and 
kept with advantage. It is easily made to forsake the 
nest, which the Hen secretes with great care and 
adroitness, generally in the midst of standing com, so 
that, in most cases, it falls a sacrifice to the reaper’s 
operations, or is destroyed when they are upon the field. 
We once reared, at the latter end of the month of 
September, a large flock of seventeen, under a Common 
Hen, from eggs got in such circumstances, the proper 
parent, being scared, having deserted them ; and we 
were most successful in bringing the whole brood to 
nearly the size of their foster mother, when a dis- 
temper, not understood, and which it baffled all our 
attempts to arrest, carried them off one by one, till 
at length the Hen, tired out, forsook the last three or 
four remaining birds, the strongest of the brood ; but, 
to our grief and disappointment, even these also became 
victims to the same fatal malady. Before the birds 
began to droop, they were very strong and promising ; 
but the lateness of the season must have been very 
trying to them, and most probably the cause of the 
illness, which proved so destructive. 
