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Birds. 
THE GUINEA FOWL, OR PINTADO. 
(Numida Meleagris.^) 
Tins bird, which is also called the Pearled Hen, was 
originally brought from Africa, where the breed is com- 
mon, and seems to have been well known to the Romans, 
who used to esteem the flesh of this fowl as a delicacy, 
and admit it at their banquets. It went then by the 
name of Numidian Hen, or Meleagris, because it was 
fabled that the sisters of Meleager, who -unceasingly 
deplored his death, were metamorphosed into Guinea 
Hens by Diana. In fact, although they are now domes- 
ticated with us, they still retain a great deal of their 
original freedom, and have a stupid look. Their noise 
is very disagreeable: it -is a creaking note, which, in- 
cessantly repeated, grates upon the ear, and becomes 
very teasing and unpleasant. They belong to the class 
of birds called puheratores ; as they scrape the ground 
and roll themselves in the dust like common hens, in 
order to get rid of small insects which lodge in their 
feathers. 
The Pintado is somewhat larger than the common hen ; 
the head is bare of feathers, and covered with a naked 
skin of a bluish colour ; on the top is a callous protuber- 
ance of a conical form. At the base of the bill on each 
side hangs a loose wattle, red in the female and bluish in 
the male. The general colour of the plumage is a dark 
bluish grey, sprinkled with round white spots of different 
sizes, resembling pearls, from which circumstance the 
