352 BULLETIN OF THE 



As the whole plumage becomes lighter, those portions that are naturally 

 lightest are those we should expecl would soonest become white; and 

 such is actually the case. Under domestication the turkey not only de- 

 generates in size and hardiness, but is well known to soon lose much of 

 the brilliancy of plumage that characterizes it in a state of nature. In a 

 few generations it loses to a great extent its metallic tints, and becomes 

 much lighter colored ; the terminal band of the tail, as well as its coverts, 

 changes to white, and in succeeding generations the cream-colored and 

 pure white birds often seen in our poultry-yards are gradually developed. 

 The fact of the domestic turkey having been first introduced into 

 Europe from Mexico, and into the United States from Europe, admits of 

 easy explanation ; since the advanced state of civilization enjoyed by the 

 native Mexicans had enabled them to domesticate the turkey, while their 

 more degraded neighbors of the north had accomplished nothing of the 

 kind. The turkey having been introduced into Europe nearly a century 

 before the establishment of permanent settlements in the northern portions 

 of the continent, it was, of course, as naturally introduced thence into this 

 country as were our other domesticated animals. 



PERDICID^E. 

 101* Ortyx virginianus Bonaparte. Qdail. 

 Tetrao virginianus Linne, Syst. Nat., I, 277, 1766. 

 Titrao marilandicus Linne, Syst. Nat., I, 277, 1766. 

 Ortyx borealis STEPHENS, Shaw's Zoul., XI, 377, 1819. 

 Perdix [Ortyx) virginiana Bonap., Obs. on Wils. Nomcn., Journ. Phil. Acad. 



Nat. Sri., 1st Scr., IV, 268, 1825. 

 Ortyx virginianus Baird, Birds N. Am., 640, 1838. — March, "Notes on 



Birds of Jamaica," Proc. Phil. Acad. Nat. Sci., XV, 303, 1863. 

 Ortyx texanus Lawrence, Ann. N. Y. Lye. Nat. Hist., VI, 1, 1853. — Baird, 

 Birds N. Amcr., 641, 1858. 

 Abundant. 



The quails of Florida differ from those of the Northern States in being 

 smaller, larger billed, and darker colored. While the difference in size is 

 very appreciable, as is also that in respect to the size of the bill, — the bill 

 being actually larger while there is a general decrease in the size of the 

 individual, — the most marked dissimilarity is in the coloration, through 

 tin' darker color of the Florida birds. In the latter the ground color 

 above i- nitons instead of ashen, as in northern specimens, and the trans- 

 verse black markings are broader. In average northern specimens the 

 transverse black bars on the lower surface of (he body are scarcely half 

 the breadth of the intervening white spaces; in the Florida specimens 

 they are much mure than half, and in some cases nearly equal them. In 



