These varieties offer sufficient choice even to the most particular amateur, who should make his selection in accordance with his wants and his locality—according as he requires egg-producers or chickens for the table, and whether he can afford his fowls the advantages of a free range over green fields, or has to keep them in a confined space, near a suburban residence.
THE PINTADO, OR GUINEA FOWL.
Guinea fowls associate readily with the common fowls in a poultry-yard; but they have this peculiarity, that the cocks and hens are so nearly alike that it is difficult to distinguish them, except by the voice, the hens only uttering the constantly-reiterated cry of “Go back! Go back!” The head is covered with a kind of casque, with wattles under the bill, and the whole plumage is either black or dark grey sprinkled with regular and uniform white spots. The pintado is a native of Africa.
These birds lay plenty of eggs, rather smaller than those of the common hen, and speckled. They may be reared by placing the eggs under a hen; but the chicks are extremely tender, and very often a sudden change of the wind in March will sweep off a whole brood in a few hours. The young should be fed with custard, &c., as ordered for fowls.
DUCKS.
The common wild duck, or mallard, is the original stock of the domesticated duck, and appears to have been reclaimed at a very early period. The mallards come from the north of Europe, at the end of autumn, and, migrating southward, arrive at the beginning of winter, in large flocks, and spread themselves over all the loughs and marshy waters in the British Isles.