308 



TURKEY. 



Chap. VIIT. 



The Turkey. 



It seems fairly wdl established by Mr. Gould, 36 that the 

 turkey, in accordance with the history of its first intro- 

 duction, is descended from a wild Mexican form, which had 

 been domesticated by the natives before the discovery 

 of America, and which is now generally ranked as a local 

 race, and not as a distinct species. However this may be, 

 the case deserves notice because in the United States wild 

 male turkeys sometimes court the domestic hens, which are 

 descended from the Mexican form, "and are generally received 

 by them with great pleasure." 37 Several accounts have 

 likewise been published of young birds, reared in the United 

 States from the eggs of the wild species, crossing and com- 

 mingling with the common breed. In England, also, this 

 same species has been kept in several parks ; from two of 

 which the Eev. W. D. Fox procured birds, and they crossed 

 freely with the common domestic kind, and during many 

 years afterwards, as he informs me, the turkeys in his neigh- 

 bourhood clearly showed traces of their crossed parentage. 

 We here have an instance of a domestic race being modified 

 by a cross with a distinct wild race or species. F. Michaux 38 

 suspected in 1802 that the common domestic turkey was not 

 descended from the United States species alone, but likewise 

 from a southern form, and he went so far as to believe that 

 English and French turkeys differed from having different 

 proportions of the blood of the two parent-forms. 



English turkeys are smaller than either wild form. They 

 have not varied in any great degree ; but there are some 

 breeds which can be distinguished— as Korfolks, Suffolks, 

 Whites, and Copper-coloured (or Cambridge), ail of which, 



3fi « Proc. Zoolog. Soc.,' April 8th, 

 1856, p. 61. Prof. Baird believes (as 

 quoted in TegetmeierV Poultry Book,' 

 1866, p. 269) that our turkeys are 

 descended from a West Indian species 

 now extinct. But besides the impro- 

 bability of a bird having long ago 

 become extinct in these large and 

 luxuriant islands, it appears (as we 

 shall presently see) that the tarkey 



degenerates in India, and this fact 

 indicates that it was not aboriginally 

 an inhabitant of the lowlands of the 

 tropics. 



37 Audubon's ' Ornithological Bio- 

 graphy.,' vol. i., 1831, pp. 4-13; and 

 ' Naturalist's Library,' vol. xiv., Birds, 

 p. 138. 



38 F. Michaux, ' Travels in N. Ame- 

 rica,' 1802, Eng. translat., p. 217. 



