328 BULLETIN 162, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



referred. Dr. Glover M. Allen (1921) also has given us a very full 

 history of this bird in New England. Both of these exhaustive 

 papers give far too much information to be included here. 

 Audubon (1840) wrote, as to its status in his time: 



The unsettled parts of the States of Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, 

 an immense extent of country to the north-west of these districts, upon the 

 Mississippi and Missouri, and the vast regions drained by these rivers from 

 their confluence to Louisiana, including the wooded parts of Arkansas, Ten- 

 nessee, and Alabama, are the most abundantly supplied with this magnificent 

 bird. It is less plentiful in Georgia and the Carolinas, becomes still scarcer 

 in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and is now very rarely seen to the eastward of 

 the last-mentioned States. In the course of my rambles through Long Island, 

 the State of New York, and the country around the Lakes, I did not meet 

 with a single individual, although I was informed that some exist in those 

 parts. At the time when I removed to Kentucky, rather more than a fourth 

 of a century ago, Turkeys were so abundant, that the price of one in the market 

 was not equal to that of a common barn fowl now. I have seen them offered 

 for the sum of three pence each, the birds weighing from ten to twelve pounds. 

 A first-rate Turkey, weighing from twenty-five to thirty pounds avoirdupois, 

 was considered well sold when it brought a quarter of a dollar. 



In the mountains of central Pennsylvania turkeys have always 

 existed up to the present time. C. J. Pennock tells me that they 

 "have multiplied greatly within the last 15 years," but that most 

 of the " stock has been intermixed with domestic birds." This is 

 largely due to the efforts of the game commission in controlling the 

 hunting season and bag limits and by importing birds from other 

 States or transferring them from a section where they are plentiful 

 to one where they are scarce. A report of this has been published 

 in some detail by Bayard H. Christy and George M. Sutton (1929). 



M. P. Skinner wrote to me in 1928 : 



The wild turkey is still found over most of North Carolina wherever there 

 are undisturbed forests of the kind preferred by the turkey. In the sand hills 

 there are still two or three groups living mostly in the swamps and river bot- 

 toms, and totaling perhaps 30 birds in all. They are resident and nonmigratory. 



In the sand hills, wild turkeys have largely retired to the deep swamps, 

 for they prefer to roost only in trees standing in water; but quite often they 

 feed out on the drier upland. 



James G. Suthard says in his notes, sent to me in 1930 : 



This noble game bird formerly bred in Kentucky, at large, but at the present 

 time has a very restricted range. It is found in the areas bordering Virginia 

 and Tennessee, in Taylor, Larue, and Hart Counties in central Kentucky, and 

 also in the game preserve in Lyon and Trigg Counties. I have some records 

 for Fulton and Hickman Counties. It is possibly found straggling in other 

 counties, but, because of its retiring habits, I have never seen it, nor do I 

 have any authentic records other than those already mentioned. It breeds dur- 

 ing April and May, sometimes late in June. 



