346 BULLETIN OF THE 



first sight, and the cheat exposed. I have known the eggs found in 

 the woods hatched hy a domestic hen, the chickens brought up carefully, 

 and rendered so tame and familiar as to eat out of the hand, and to 

 show considerable pleasure whenever persons with whom they were ac- 

 quainted approached them. Yet they never would associate icith the domes- 

 tic turkeys, studiously avoiding their company, and in little more than a year 

 running oil' to the woods, and never again returning to the haunts of their 

 infancy. / knoiv," he continues, "that I shall be contradicted in this 

 statement, and many quotations from authors brought forward against me. I 

 repeat, contrary to the assertions of many others, that no one has ever 



SUCCEEDED IX DOMESTICATING OUR WILD TURKEY. I Speak not Only 



from my own personal observations, but from the undivided testimony of 

 many southern gentlemen. The turkey of our own poultry-yards, which, 

 when young, is difficult to bring forward, it was thought might be obtained 

 of a hardier race by a new domestication ; but every attempt has failed, 

 nor can I find a single well-authenticated case of a mixed breed being 

 obtained." One is certainly at a loss to know what the self-confident 

 Major would call a well-authenticated case of a mixed breed of wild and 

 tame turkeys, since he must have been familiar with Bonaparte's excellent 

 account, derived mainly from notes furnished him by Mr. Audubon, of 

 this bird given in the first volume of his continuation of Wilson's " Ameri- 

 can Ornithology." In sneaking of the mixing of the wild and tame tur- 

 keys, this author remarks as follows : " This crossing often occurs in coun- 

 *ies where wild and tame turkeys are frequent ; it is well known that they 

 ,vill readily approach each other ; and such is the influence of slavery 

 upon even the turkey, that the robust inhabitant of the forest will drive 

 his degenerate kinsfolk from their own food and from their females, being 

 generally welcomed by the latter and by their owners, who well know the 



advantage of such a connection Eggs of the wild turkey have been 



frequently taken from their nests and hatched under the tame hen ; the 

 young preserve a portion of their uncivilized nature, and exhibit some 

 knowledge of the difference between themselves and their foster-mother, 

 roosting apart from the tame ones, and in other respects showing the force 

 of hereditary disposition. The domesticated young, reared from the eggs 

 of the wild turkey, are often employed as decoy birds to those in a state of 

 nature." * 



Audubon, in his account of the Canada goose, also incidentally refers 

 to the crossing of the wild and tame turkeys, in a manner tint leads 

 US to suppose that it was to bis knowledge a matter of common oc- 

 currence, lie says : " The crossing of the Canada goose with the com- 



* Nearly the same words are used by Audubon in his Ornithological Biography and 

 in his Birds of America. 



