158 
THE GUINEA FOWL. 
which, has already been stated, They are in sea¬ 
son from the middle of December till May. A 
Bantam hen is the best mother, being lighter, and 
less likely to injure them by treading on them than 
a full-sized fowl. She will well cover nine eggs, 
and incubation will last a month. The young are 
excessively pretty. When first hatched, they are 
so strong and active as to appear not to require the 
attention really necessary to rear them. Almost as 
soon as they are dry, from the moisture of the egg, 
they will peck each other’s toes, as if supposing 
them to be worms, will scramble with each other 
for a crumb of bread, and will domineer over any 
little Bantam, or chicken, that may perhaps have 
been brought off in the same clutch with themselves. 
No one, who did not know, would guess, from their 
appearance, of what species of bird they were the 
offspring. Their orange-red bills and legs, and the 
dark, zebra-like stripes, with which they are regu¬ 
larly marked, from head to tail, bear no traces of 
the speckled plumage of their parents. 
Hard-boiled egg, chopped fine, small worms, mag¬ 
gots, bread crumbs, chopped meat, or suet, what¬ 
ever, in short, is most nutritious, is their most ap¬ 
propriate food. This need not be offered to them in 
large quantities, as it would only be devoured by the 
mother Bantam, as soon as she saw that her little 
ones had for the time satisfied their appetites ; but 
it should be frequently administered to them, in 
small supplies. Feeding them three, four, or five 
times a day, is not nearly often enough; every half 
hour, during daylight, they should be tempted to fill 
their little craws, which are soon emptied again by 
an extraordinary power and quickness of digestion. 
The newly-hatched Guinea fowl is a tiny creature, 
a mere infinitesimal of the full-grown bird; its 
growth is consequently very rapid, and requires 
incessant supplies. A check once received can 
never be recovered. In such cases, they do not 
mope and pine, for a day or two, like young tur¬ 
keys under similar circumstances, and then die : but 
in half an hour after, being in apparent health, they 
fall on their backs, give a convulsive kick or two, 
and fall victims, in point of fact, to starvation. 
The demands of nature for the growth of bone, 
muscle, and particularly of feather, are so great, that 
no subsequent, abundant supply of food can make 
up for a fast of a couple of hours. The feathers 
still go on, grow, grow, grow, in geometrical pro¬ 
gression, and drain the sources of vitality still fas¬ 
ter than they can be supplied, till the bird faints 
and expires from want of fullness. 
This constant supply of suitable food, it is be¬ 
lieved, is the great secret in rearing the more deli¬ 
cate birds, turkeys, Guinea fowls, pheasants, &c., 
never to suffer the growth of the chick (which goes 
on whether it has food in its stomach or not), to 
produce exhaustion of the vital powers, for want of 
the necessary aliment. Young turkeys, as soon as 
they once feel languid, from this cause, refuse their 
food when it is at last offered to them (just like a 
man whose appetite is gone, in consequence of hav¬ 
ing waited too long for his dinner), and never would 
eat more, were food not forced down their throats, 
by which operation they may frequently be recov¬ 
ered ; but the little Guinea fowls give no notice of 
this faintness, till they are past all cure : and a strug¬ 
gle of a few minutes shows that they have, indeed, 
outgrown their strength, or rather that the material 
for producing strength, has not been supplied to 
them in a degree commensurate with their growth. 
A dry, sunny corner, in the garden, will be the best 
place to coop them with their Bantam mother. As they 
increase in strength, they will do no harm, but a 
great deal of good, by devouring worms, grubs, 
caterpillars, maggots, and all sorts of insects. By 
the time their bodies are little bigger than those of 
sparrows, they will be able to ffy with some degree 
of strength ; and it is very pleasing to see them es¬ 
say the use of their wings at the call of their foster 
mother, or the approach of their feeder. It is one 
out of millions of instances of the provident wis¬ 
dom of the Almighty Creator, that the wing and 
tail feathers of young gallinaceous birds, with 
which they require to be furnished, at the earliest 
possible time, as a means of escape from their nu¬ 
merous enemies, exhibit the most rapid growth of 
any part of their frame. Other additions to their 
complete stature are successively and leas immedi¬ 
ately developed. The wings of a chicken are soon 
fledged enough to be of great resistance to it; the 
spurs, comb, and ornamental plumage do not ap¬ 
pear till quite a subsequent period. 
When the young Guinea fowls are about the size 
of quails, or perhaps a little larger, their mother 
Bantam (which we suppose to be a tame, quiet, 
matronly creature), may be suffered to range loose 
in the orchard and fields, and no longer be permitted 
to enter the garden, lest her family should acquire 
a habit of visiting it at a time when their presence 
would be less welcome than formerly. They must 
still, however, receive a bountiful and frequent sup¬ 
ply of food ; they are not to be considered safe till 
the horn on their heads is fairly grown. Indian 
meal, as a great treat, cooked potatoes, boiled rice, 
anything, in short, that is eatable, may be thrown 
down to them. They will pick the bones left after 
dinner with great satisfaction, and no doubt benefit 
to themselves. The tamer they can be made, the 
less troublesome will those birds be which you re¬ 
tain for stock • the more kindly they are treated, 
the more they are petted and pampered, the fatter 
and better-conditioned will the others become, 
which you design for your own table, or as pre¬ 
sents to your friends, and the better price will you 
get, if you send them to market. 
At a certain period, they will have got beyond the 
management of their good little Bantam mother, and 
will cast off her authority. They will form what 
has appropriately been called a “pack;” prowling 
about in a body, after insects, and seeds, or grazing 
together (for they eat a great deal of grass), still in 
a pack^ fiercely driving away any intruder on their 
society, and all giving tongue, in one chorus, at the 
approach of any danger. When fully grown, they 
weigh from 3 to 4 lbs. 
Birds, thus reared on tne spot, where they are 
meant to be kept, are sure to thrive better and give 
less trouble than those procured from a distance; 
they sometimes, will not remain in their new home, 
but wander about in search of their old haunts till 
they either find them, or are themselves lost, de¬ 
stroyed, or stolen. 
It is of no use to shut up these fowls to .fatten, 
unless; they have previously been made particularly 
tame, as they would sulk, pine, and die, before they 
