Guinea-fowl meaning

They were given a dead guinea fowl to eat, feathers and all.

Among the larger birds are cranes, herons, the ibis, storks, eagles, vultures, falcons, hawks, kites, owls, the secretary birds, pelicans, flamingoes, wild duck and geese, gulls, and of game birds, the paauw, koraan, pheasant, partridge, guinea fowl and quail.

But it is almost as unquestionable that the name was originally applied to the bird which we know as the guinea-fowl, and there is no doubt that some authors in the 16th and 17th centuries curiously confounded these two species.

But even Linnaeus could not clear himself of the confusion, and unhappily misapplied the name Meleagris, undeniably belonging to the guinea-fowl, as the generic term for what we now know as the turkey, adding thereto as its specific designation the word gallopavo, taken from the Gallopava of C. Gesner, who, though not wholly free from error, was less mistakep than some of his contemporaries and even successors.'

This names ` Turkey-cocke " as one of the " greater fowles " of which an ecclesiastic was to have " but one in a dishe," and its association with the crane and swan precludes the likelihood of any confusion with the guinea-fowl.