White and Brown Chinese.—Bodies plump and round, covered with coat of soft feathers and fine down. Medium size, mature specimens weighing ten to fourteen pounds. Long arch necks, with large round knob at base of beak. Short erect body and carriage.
Guinea Fowl
Guinea Fowl (Numida) belongs to a genus of African birds in the pheasant family. The plumage is dark gray, with round spots of white, generally larger on the back and under surface. Some species are adorned on the head with a helmet or horny casque, while others have fleshy wattles on the cheeks and a tuft or top-knot on the crown.
The best known is the common guinea fowl (N. meleagris), also popularly known as “Comeback,” from its cry, with naked head, hard callous casque, and slate-colored plumage, everywhere speckled with round white spots of various sizes. The guinea fowl is now common in the poultry-yards, although it is more adapted to warm than to cold climates. The eggs are small, and have a thick, strong shell, but are particularly esteemed. The flesh is somewhat like a pheasant’s, but rather dry.
Ostrich
Ostrich (Struthio). A bird which was once included with the cassowaries, emu, rhea and apteryx in a distinct order, but which is probably better regarded as forming a separate family. Its nearest allies appear to be the rheas of South America.
An adult male may reach a height of eight feet, the neck being about three feet long. The special peculiarity is the reduction of the toes to two, these corresponding to the third and fourth of the typical foot. The foot and tarsus are both stout; the head is small, with large eyes, and short, broad, and depressed beak; the wing and tail feathers are large and soft, and have broad, equal vanes; while the long neck is practically naked. The feathers are without an aftershaft.
The true ostrich is a native of Africa. All are flightless birds, and as the wing muscles are reduced there is no keel on the breastbone. The African ostrich has but two toes, the others three. The rheas and the emus may be dismissed with mere mention, the rheas furnishing the feathers used in feather dusters. The African ostriches furnish the well-known plumes and are bred for the purpose, the export of feathers from South Africa amounting to over five million dollars a year. There are now ostrich farms in South America, California, Arizona and Florida. The eggs are laid in the sand and in nature are incubated by the heat of the sun. The plumes are cut (not pulled out) once a year.
Parrot
Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) is a type of an important group of birds, divided into numerous families including the love-birds, macaws, cockatoos and porakeets. They are preeminently tropical birds, and arboreal in habit; some species, however, range into colder countries—e. g., Patagonia and New Zealand—and some, such as the burrowing ground parrot of New Zealand, are not arboreal. They are fruit and seed eating birds, with the exception of the kea, of New Zealand, which has taken to a carnivorous diet.