GUINEA-FOWL. A group of birds, closely allied to the peacock, representing the pheasant family on the continent of Africa, and in part domesticated. The guinea-fowls are usually re garded as a subfamily (NumidinH), and are separated into several genera, including a dozen species, all natives of Africa and Madagascar. They stand between the pheasants and the tur keys and jungle - fowls. Nearest the typical pheasants in structure (from which the subfam ily differs in having the skin of the head more or less bare and wattled, in the absence of spurs, and in the fact that the plumage of the sexes, is alike) are the crested guinea-fowls of the genus Guttera. They have a jet-black plumage, dotted with small bluish-white or light-green spots, the bare skin of the neck blue, purplish, or scarlet, and the head crowned by a long, full black crest. There is also a ruff about the neck. This genus (or at any rate its best-known species, Guttera cristata, of the West African coast) possesses a unique structure in the fact that the head of its wish-bone (the furcula), unlike that in all other Gallinu, is in the form of a hollow cup which opens upward, into which the trachea, or windpipe, dips and emerges again. Another group contains the 'helmeted' guinea-fowls, of which the 'common' species (Numida ineleagris) is the type, the top of whose head is covered with a horny cap or 'calque' rising into a hard crest; the bare skin on the sides of the face, neck, and chin, as well as the wattles, are red, and the re mainder of the neck is bluish and bristly. The
plumage is black, thickly sprinkled with round white spots, to which the bird is said to owe its specific name, given to it by the Romans in fanciful allusion to the tears shed by the sisters of Meleager when he died. Its native home is West-Central Africa. Representing the group in South Africa are Numida coronata, a favorite game-bird in Cape Colony, and Numida cornuta, more prevalent northeastward. Madagascar has a red-crowned species (Numida mitrata), now acclimatized and wild in Rodriguez, and Abys sinia a well-known form (Numida ptilorhyncha), without any red on the head, as have all the others, and regarded by Darwin (Animals and Plants Under Domestication, 1875) as the source of our domestic races. The Numida vulturina of Zanzibar differs from all these, and is the finest of the species. Its plumage is dark blue, it has hackles on the lower part of its neck, and a long tail. Some writers believe this species forms a separate genus, Acryllium. Two other allied birds, essentially differing from the type by the possession of spurs on the feet, are the rare black guinea-fowl (Phasidus niger) and the turkey guinea-fowl (A gelastes meleagrides), both of the coast of equatorial West Africa, and little known. All these agree in going about in large and noisy flocks, seeking their food on the ground, but roosting in trees. They are polygamous as a rule, make nests on the ground, and lay many eggs. They furnish good sport, and their flesh is excellent.