TllK nil.l) TUKKl.V. 397 



generally known and satisfactorily proved that the Europeans only became acquainted 

 with these birds after the discovery of America, from which one sjsecies has been spread, 

 in a domesticated state, over the greatest part of the civilised globe. 



The 2Ielea(jris Gallo-pavo is the original stock from which the domesticated turkey is 

 derived. 



The range of the wild turkey appears to extend from the north-w^estorn territory cf 

 the United States to the Isthmus of Darien. C. L. Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano, who is 

 the chief authority on this subject, relates that when the Mandan Indians visited Wash- 

 ington, not many years ago, they looked on the turkey as a great curiosity, and prepared 

 the skin of one to be carried home for exhibition. The wooded tracts of Arkansas, 

 Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama, and the unsettled parts of the states of Ohio, Ken- 

 tucky, Indiana, and Illinois, foim the great nursery of this species ; but their domain is 

 daily contracting before the activily of the settler, and the turkey before long will cease 

 to exist as a wild species. 



The head of the wild male is small in proportion to the body ; it is covered with a naked 

 bluish skin, continued over the upper half of the neck, and uneven with warty elevations, 

 changeable red on the upper portion and whitish below, and interspersed with a few scattered 

 black hairs. The flaccid and membranous naked skin, also changeable on the lower part 

 of the neck, extends do^vnwards into large wattles. A wrinkled conical fleshy protube- 

 rance, capable of elongation, and with a pencil of hairs at the tip, takes its rise from the 

 base of the bill, where the latter joins the front. "When this excrescence is elongated 

 under excitement, it covers the bill, and extends several inches below it. A tuft of long 

 rigid black hair springs from the lower part of the neck at its junction with the breast, 

 shooting out among the plumage to the length c^ nine inches. 



The base of the feathers of the body, which are long and truncated, consist of a light 

 fuliginous down ; this part of the feather is succeeded by a dusky portion, which is again 

 followed by a broad shining metallic band, varying from copper colour, or bronze, to 

 violet, or purple, according to the play of the light, and the tip is a broad velvety band ; 

 but the last is absent in the feathers of the neck and breast. 



The general fil^iniage presents a glancing metallic lustre, which is, however, least 

 glossy on the lower part of the back and tail-coverts. The wings are concave and 

 rounded, not extending much, if at all, beyond the base of the tail. The tail is, at 

 least, fifteen inches in length, rounded at the extremity ; the feathers are eighteen inches 

 broad, and capable of expansion and elevation with a fan-shape. The general colour of 

 these feathers is brown mottled with black, crossed by numerous narrow undulating lines 

 of the same. The bird stands high on its robust red legs, the scales of which have 

 blackish margins ; and t-he blunt spurs are about an inch long. The bill Is reddish, but 

 brown-coloured at the tip. The length of the bird is nearly four feet ; the expanse of the 

 wings more than five. 



The female wild turkey has less of naked skin on the head and neck ; they are 

 partially covered with dirty feathers. The short caruncle on the front Is incapable of 

 elongation ; and the tuft on the breast, which Is not present In young birds, is in the 

 older ones highly developed. The whole plumage is much more sombre than that of the 

 male ; but the colour of the tail Is much the same. The length of the bird does not 

 exceed three feet and a quarter. 



The males associate in parties of from ten to a hundred, and seek their food apart 

 from the females, which either go about singly with their young, at that time about 

 two-thirds grown, or form troops with other females and their families, sometimes to the 

 amount of seventy or eighty. These all avoid the old males, who attack and destroy the 

 young, whenever they can, by reiterated blows on the skull. 



But all parties travel in the same direction, and on foot, unless the dog of a hunter, 



