Royal Institution of Great Britain, ZUf 



ened by their being separated from the rest of the green and blue, 

 by a line of velvet black. The feathers of the tail coverts have 

 those parts, which are least exposed, of a gray colour, but the gray 

 is rendered more conspicuous in such as approach the extremity of 

 the tail, in which, as in the true tail feathers, the extremities, having 

 their blue and green parts surrounded by a black circle, and bor- 

 dered on their outward edge with a beautiful golden green, repre- 

 sent the eyelike embellishments of the pavo bicalcaratus ; there are 

 four transverse rows of these eyes, separated by gray ; the lesser 

 wing coverts are of emerald green, with a narrow border of black ; 

 the greater coverts of the secondaries are of metallic copper, with 

 golden reflections : internally, near the quill, they are emerald 

 green ; externally, grayish white : the primary coverts are blackish 

 brown, with narrow oblique bands of white, as are also all the quills, 

 except the external borders of the last primaries, and nearly all the 

 secondaries, which are white : the secondaries nearest the back are 

 tinted with golden green ; the tail has fourteen feathers, and is 

 round at the extremity ; the feathers of the thighs are blackish ; 

 the legs are rather longer and stronger than in the common turkey, 

 and have much larger and more pointed spurs ; their colour is a 

 fine red." 



The most beautiful wild turkeys are entirely destitute of eyelike 

 spots, and have the ground of their plumage of a bronze colour, 

 changing into copper, each feather having a broad dark border, and 

 another narrower border of a lighter colour ; the tail is also composed 

 of longer and stronger feathers. 



The specimen placed on the table was also sent alive from the 

 Bay of Honduras, as a present ; it arrived in this country, in Fe- 

 bruary, 1818, and, dying on its arrival, was stuffed, and placed in a 

 room, in an elevated situation, where it remained unnoticed until 

 the present time. It is also a male. 



A third specimen is to be found in the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, at Charleston, South Carolina ; but the neck is so imperfect, 

 as to have caused Mr. Say, the naturalist, to reject a memorandum 

 which he had taken from it, with the view to publication, some 

 years antecedently to the description, and thus to lose the credit of 

 having been the first to make this brilliant bird known. The speci- 

 men is also a male, and from the great length of its spur, and the 

 more decided development of the eyelike markings on the feathers 

 of the lower part of the belly, as well as on the tail coverts, it 

 is supposed to be a bird of mature plumage. 



Since the specimen has remained at the Royal Institution it has 



