MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOULOGY. S47 



men domestic species has proved as advantageous as that of the wild with 

 the tame turkey."* He also states, " My friend, Dr. Bachman, assures 

 me that in a state of domestication the wild turkeys, though kept separate 

 from tame individuals, lose the brilliancy of their plumage in the third 

 generation, becoming plain brown, and having here and there white 

 feathers intermixed " f 



The assertions of Major LeConte are so fully controverted by pre- 

 viously recorded testimony that they might have been justly ignored, 

 had they not received, as already observed, the sanction of eminent 

 authorities, and thus have come to be more or less currently adopted. 

 Among the first to give them support was Professor Baird, of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. This gentleman, in his work on the " Birds of North 

 America," published less than two years subsequently to Major LeConte's 

 paper, cites LeConte's opinions and statements, and partially indorses them, 

 though he had not, he says, specimens at hand of the domestic bird for 

 comparison with the wild one. To the data for their distinction adduced 

 by Major LeConte, he adds a statement from Bonaparte in respect to the 

 difference in color between the domestic and wild bird ; Bonaparte ob- 

 serving that the wild bird never has the whitish tip to the tail which dis- 

 tinguishes the domestic ones. Professor Baird also adds that the flesh of the 

 two differs in color, that of the wild bird being " much dai-ker." He adds 

 that, upon the whole, it is exceedingly probable that they are specifically 

 distinct. " If the dewlap," he says, " be characteristic of a species at 

 present only known in captivity, then, as Major LeConte remarks, it 

 should bear the name of M. gallopavo, as based by Linnams essentially upon 

 the description by Brisson of Gallopavo sylvestris, in which this dewlap is 

 particularly mentioned. In this event our wild bird will be entitled to a 

 new name," etc. Professor Baird concludes his remarks on this subject with 

 the following ingenious theory, which has been to some extent accepted as 

 a probably correct one. " In conclusion," he says, " I venture to suggest 

 the following hypothesis, which, however, is not original with myself: 

 That there are really three species of turkey, besides the M. ocellata, a 

 fourth species from Central America, entirely different from the rest. 

 That one of them, M. americana, is probably peculiar to the eastern half 

 of North America ; another, HI. mexicana, belongs to Mexico, and extends 

 along the table-lands to the Rocky Mountains, the Gila, and the Llano 

 Estacado; and a third is the M. gallopavo, or domesticated bird. That it 

 is not at all improbable that the last was originally indigenous to some 

 one or more of the West Indian Islands, whence it was transplanted as 

 tamed to Mexico, and from Mexico taken to Europe about a. d. 1520. 



* Birds of America, Vol. VI, p. 190. 

 t Ibid., Vol. V, p. 55. 



