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THE MYSTERIES OF THE POULTRY YARD. 



THE MYSTERIES OF THE POULTRY YARD.' 



[If among " rural arts," that somewhat 

 difficult one of raising turkeys may be reck- 

 oned, then have we been unmindful of the 

 interests of a certain class of our readers. 

 To make amends, we serve them up to-day 

 a piquant and complete article, by one 

 who looks at the basse-coicr with the eye of 

 a philosopher. — Ed.] 



If we call to mind the many and valuable ac- 

 quisitions from both the animal and vegetable 

 kingdom which have been made subservient to the 

 use of man within comparatively a very recent pe- 

 riod, it is not too much to believe that others, of 

 nearly or quite equal value, still remain to reward 

 the labor and pains of a persevering search. There is 

 the whole of central Africa, central Australia, great 

 part of China and northern India (which have already 

 afforded us so much) and innumerable half-explored 

 or unexplored islands, all waiting to be ransacked 

 for our benefit. And without depending upon those 

 distant regions, we know not yet what we may 

 find at home; seeing that the delicious Seakale — 

 an esculent wdiose merits are yet unknown to many 

 a family of competent means living in retirement 

 — has only within the last few years sprung up 

 under our very feet; and the Capercali, by an easy 

 importation, has been rescued from extinction in 

 Great Britain. 



Amongst the living tributaries to the luxury of 

 man, the turkey is an example of the results yet to 

 be expected from the exploring spirit of our day. 

 It is the most recent, and, except the hen and the 

 goose, the most valuable of our domesticated birds. 

 We may, indeed, call it quite a ne<(r introduction; 

 for what, after all, is a period of 300 years, com- 

 pared with the time during which man has had do- 

 minion over the earth and its brute inhabitants ? 

 The obscurity which hangs over the transmission of 

 the turkey from America, and which there is little 

 chance of clearing away, except by industrious fer- 

 reting amongst old family records and memoran- 

 dum books, shows that those who brought it to the 

 old world had no idea of the value of what they 

 were importing; but probably regarded it like any 

 other remarkable production of nature — a macaw 

 or a tortoise. The young would be distributed 

 among friends with the same leeling that golden 

 pheasants and such like are with us; these again 

 ■would thrive and increase, and the nation would 

 suddenly find itself in the possession of a race, not 

 of pleasing pets, but of valuable, prolific, and hardy 

 stock of poultry. Such I take to be the history of 

 the turkey in England ; and the Zoological and 

 Ornithological Societies may hereafter find that 

 some creature that was disregarded, or underval- 

 ued, or even yet unobtained, will prove unexpect- 



*From the London Agricultural Gazette. 



edly domestic and profitable (it may be the Cere- 

 opsis, some of the Indian Polyplectrons, or the ele- 

 gant Honduras turkey ;) to further which great 

 object of their association they cannot do better 

 than communicate spare specimens, on the most 

 liberal and encouraging terms, to such persons as 

 they believe competent fairly to test their value. 



The varieties of the domesticated turkey are not 

 very distinct. The most so is the Norfolk ; the 

 others may all be swept into what is called the 

 Cambridge breed (thus including the t)ustard and 

 Dutch copper-colored breeds,) which, however, is 

 as much cultivated in Norfolk as the old local stock, 

 and birds of which kind often pass for true Nor- 

 folks, because thej' have been procured from that 

 county. The real Norfolk turkey is more hardy, 

 but less ornamental than the others, and of smaller 

 size. It is entirely black, except the red skin about 

 the head, and a brownish tip to the feathers of the 

 tail and some of those of the back. This gives the 

 bird a rusty appearance, like an old piece of well- 

 worn cotton velvet. The Cambridge sort, when 

 black, have a beautifully shining blueish tinge, like 

 a well-polished boot. The chicks of the Norfolks 

 are black, with occasionally white patches about 

 the head; those of the Cambridge variety are mot- 

 tled all over with brownish grey, and are of taller 

 and slenderer proportions. The white individuals 

 of either variety are accidental ; this color is scarcely 

 permanent in their offspring; they are tender, not 

 pleasing to every eye, and altogether not to be re- 

 commended. The plumage of the Cambridge 

 breed varies very much ; sometimes it is entirely 

 made up of shades of reddish brown and grey, when 

 it is called the bustard breed ; sometimes of grey, 

 black, and white, but frequently it approaches very 

 nearly to what we see figured as the wild bird. In 

 the '' Naturalist's Library," the hen of the wild 

 turkey, copied from Audubon, is represented with 

 a hairy tuft like that of the cock hanging from her 

 breast. I have not seen this in the tame variety. 

 A hen in my possession that will be four years old 

 next spring (184S) has no symptom of its appear- 

 ance. The reason why the turkeys seen in our 

 poultry yards do not vie in splendour of plumage 

 with their untamed brethren is that we do not let 

 them live long enough. A creature that does not 

 attain its full growth till its fifth or sixth )'ear, we 

 kill at latest in the second, to the evident deterio- 

 ration of our stock. But let three or four well se- 

 lected Cambridge turkeys be retained to their real- 

 ly adult state, and well fed meanwhile, and they 

 will quite recompense their keeper by their beauty 

 in full plumage, by their glancing hues of gilded 

 green and purple, their lovely shades of brown, 

 bronze and black, and the pearly lustre that radi- 

 ates from their polished feathers. In default of 

 wild specimens, birds like these are sought to com- 

 plete collections of stuffed birds. 



The demand for such large birds among the 

 fowl-dealers, and the temptation to fat them before 

 they arrive at this stage, are so great, that few 



