Rendall’s Guinea-fowl. 
Numida Rendallii , Ogilby, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1835, p. 103. 
„ maculipennis , Swainson, Jardine’s Nat. Lib. (Birds of W. Africa), vol. viii. p. 226, 1837. 
The principal point of interest in the accompanying species is the possibility of its having 
been the original of our semi-domestic bird. 
Habitat, common, on the banks of the River Gambia. 
The head and upper part of the neck are bare; the former covered with a wrinkled scalp-like 
skin, gathered into a small keel-shaped ridge in the centre, about half an inch in length, and not 
more than a quarter of an inch high. The neck is red, naked principally on the throat and 
sides, and covered on the back with glossy black hair, or rather small feathers, with the beards 
so fine as to be perceptible only upon close examination. The lower part of the neck and breast 
are covered with feathers of a beautiful violet colour without spots, clearest on the breast, but with 
a browner hue upon the upper surface. The back, shoulders, and rump are of the usual brown 
colour, speckled thickly with minute white spots, each surrounded with an intensely black ring, 
much smaller and more numerous than in the common species, and intermixed with an infinity of 
still more minute white points. The greater coverts of the wings and whole under surface of the 
body are black, with large white spots ; the quill-feathers spotted towards the shaft, and barred 
transversely on the lower margin only, and the tail-feathers light grey, with white spots in a black 
ring, and interspersed with numerous black dots or points. The white spots of the coverts, quills, 
and belly are not surrounded by black rings, like those of the back and tail. 
Total length, twenty-one inches. 
