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GUINEA FOWL

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 697 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GUINEA See also:FOWL , a well-known domestic gallinaceous See also:bird, so called from the See also:country whence in See also:modern times it was brought to See also:Europe, the Meleagris and Avis or Gallina Numidica of See also:ancient authors.' Little is positively known of the See also:wild stock to which we owe our tame birds, nor can the See also:period of its re-introduction (for there is apparently no See also:evidence of its domestication being continuous from the See also:time of the See also:Romans) be assigned more than roughly to that of the See also:African discoveries of the Portuguese. It does not seem to have been commonly known till the See also:middle of the 16th See also:century, when See also:John See also:Caius sent a description and figure, with the name See also:Gallus Mauritanus, to See also:Gesner, who published both in his Paralipomena in 1555, and in the same See also:year See also:Belon also gave a See also:notice and woodcut under the name of Poulle de la Guinee; but while the former authors properly referred their bird to the ancient Meleagris, the latter confounded the Meleagris and the See also:turkey. The See also:ordinary guinea fowl of the poultry-yard (see also POULTRY AND POULTRY-FARMING) is the Numida meleagris of ornithologists. The See also:chief or. only changes which domestication seems to have induced in its See also:appearance are a tendency to albinism generally shown in the plumage of its See also:lower parts, and frequently, though not always, the See also:conversion of the See also:colour of its legs and ',See also:Columella (De re rustica, viii. cap. 2) distinguishes the Meleagels from the Gallina Africana or Numidica, the latter having, he says, a red wattle (palea, a See also:reading obviously preferable to galea), while it was See also:blue in the former. This would look as if the Meleagris had sprung from what is now called Numida ptilorhyncha, while the Gallina Africana originated in the N. meleagris, See also:species which have a different 'range, and if so the fact would point to two distinct introductions—one by Greeks. the other by Latins.feet from dark greyish-See also:brown to See also:bright See also:orange. That the See also:home of this species is See also:West See also:Africa from the See also:Gambia 2 to the Gaboon is certain, but its range in the interior is quite unknown. It appears to have been imported See also:early into the Cape Verd Islands, where, as also in some of the Greater See also:Antilles and in See also:Ascension, it has run wild. Representing the species in See also:South Africa we have the N. coronata, which is very numerous from the Cape See also:Colony to Ovampoland, and the N. cornuta of Drs Finsch and Hartlaub, which replaces it in the west as far as the Zambesi. See also:Madagascar also has its See also:peculiar species, distinguishable by its red See also:crown, the N. mitrata of See also:Pallas, a name which has often been misapplied to the last. This bird has been introduced to See also:Rodriguez, where it is now found wild. See also:Abyssinia is inhabited by another species, the N. ptilorhyncha,3 which differs from all the foregoing by the See also:absence of any red colouring about the See also:head.

Very different from all of them, and the finest species known, is the N. vulturina of See also:

Zanzibar, conspicuous by the bright blue in its plumage, the hackles that adorn the lower See also:part of its See also:neck, and its See also:long tail. By some writers it is thought to See also:form a See also:separate genus, Acryllium. All these guinea fowls except the last are characterized by having the crown See also:bare of feathers and elevated into a bony " See also:helmet," but there is another See also:group (to which the name Guttera has been given) in which a thick tuft of feathers ornaments the See also:top of the head. This contains four or five species, all inhabiting some part or other of Africa, the best known being the N. cristata from Sierra Leone and other places on the western See also:coast. This bird, apparently mentioned by Marcgrave more than 200 years ago, but first described by Pallas, is remark-able for the structure—unique, if not possessed by its representative forms—of its furcula, where the head, instead of being the thin See also:plate found in all other Gallinae, is a hollow See also:cup opening upwards, into which the trachea dips, and then emerges on its way to the lungs. Allied to the genus Numida, but readily distinguished thereform among other characters by the See also:possession of spurs and the absence of a helmet, are two very rare forms, Agelastes and Phasidus, both from western Africa. Of their habits nothing is known. All these birds are beautifully figured in Elliot's Monograph of the Phasianidae, from drawings by See also:Wolf. (A. N.) GUINEA-See also:WORM (Dracontiasis), a disease due to the Filaria medinensis, or Dracunculus, or Guinea-worm, a filarious nematode like a See also:horse-See also:hair, whose most frequent See also:habitat is the subcutaneous and intramuscular tissues of the legs and feet. It is See also:common on the Guinea coast, and in many other tropical and subtropical regions and has been familiarly known since ancient times. The See also:condition of dracontiasis due to it is a very common one, and sometimes amounts to an epidemic.

The See also:

black races are most liable, but Europeans of almost any social See also:rank and of either See also:sex are not altogether exempt. The worm lives in See also:water, and, like the Filaria sanguinis honinis, appears to have an intermediate See also:host for its larval See also:stage. It is doubtful whether the worm penetrates the skin of the legs directly; it is not impossible that the intermediate host (a cyclops) which contains the larvae may be swallowed with the water, and that the larvae of the Dracunculus may be set See also:free in the course of digestion.

End of Article: GUINEA FOWL

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