108 Miscellaneous. 



to his necessities or his pleasures, has become involved in obscurity. 

 As instances in point we may cite among quadrupeds the Camel, the 

 Horse, the Dog, &c., and among birds the various Gallinacece, Ana- 

 tidce and Columbidce, all of which were derived from Asia. The pro- 

 ductions of the New World have not yielded such ready obedience 

 to his sway, since no one of its quadrupeds has yet been domesticated, 

 and only one of its birds — the Turkey ; but a like fate, if I mistake 

 not, has attended the origin of this solitary acquisition, which, 

 although the bird has not been known to us more than 300 years, 

 is equally wrapped in uncertainty. 



" So involved in obscurity," says Mr. Martin, *' is the early 

 history of the Turkey, and so ignorant do the writers of the six- 

 teenth and seventeeth centuries appear to have been about it, that 

 they have regarded it as a bird known to the ancients by the name 

 of * Meleagris,' namely, the Guinea-fowl or Pintado, a mistake which 

 was not cleared up until the middle of the eighteenth century. The 

 appellation of Turkey which the bird bears in our country, arose, 

 according to Willoughby, from a supposition that it came originally 

 from the country so called. Mexico was first discovered by Grijalva 

 in 1518. Oviedo speaks of the Turkey as a kind of peacock abound- 

 ing in New Spain, which had already, in 1526, been transported in a 

 domestic state to the islands and the Spanish Main, where it was 

 kept by the Christian colonists. It is reported to have been intro- 

 duced into England in 1524, and is enumerated as among the dainties 

 of the table in 1541. In 1573 it had become the customary Christ- 

 mas fare of the farmer." Every author who has written on the subject 

 since the days of Linnaeus has considered it to be derived from the 

 well-known wild Turkey of North America, but on account of the great 

 diiferences which are met with among our domestic Turkeys, and 

 the circumstance of the wild Turkeys recently imported from North 

 America not readily associating or pairing with them, I have for 

 some years past entertained a contrary opinion. This opinion may 

 be met by some persons with the remark, that similar and even 

 greater differences occur among our domestic poultry. True — but I 

 believe that these differences are due to an admixture of two, three, 

 or more species, and that in no case would the domestication of a 

 single species produce characters so decided as those exhibited by 

 the two birds now exhibited. 



In Canada and the United States the Turkey is partially migra- 

 tory, visiting those countries during the summer, for the purpose of 

 breeding, and although some writers state that it is a native of 

 Mexico, I can hardly think it likely that it ranges very far south in 

 the latter country, for, from the southern boundary of Canada to 

 Mexico is nearly 2000 miles, and it is unlikely, I think, that a bird 

 of the cold regions of Canada should also be indigenous to the hotter 

 country of Mexico, whence, and not from North America, the Turkey 

 was originally introduced into Europe by the Spaniards early in the 

 sixteenth century. 



Believing this bird to be distinct from the North American species, 



