merriam's turkey 323 



Family MELEAGRIDIDAE, Turkeys 



MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO MERRIAMI Nelson 



MERRIAM'S TURKEY 



HABITS 



The wild turkey of the mountain regions of the Southwestern 

 United States and extreme northwestern Mexico was described by Dr. 

 E. W. Nelson (1900) and named in honor of Dr. C. Hart Merriam. 

 He has characterized it as follows : " Distinguished from M. g. fera 

 by the whitish tips to feathers of lower rump, tail-coverts, and tail ; 

 from M. g. rnexicana by its velvety black rump and the greater 

 amount of rusty rufous succeeding the white tips on tail-coverts and 

 tail, and the distinct black and chestnut barring of middle tail 

 feathers." 



Nelson showed in the same paper that the ancestors of our domestic 

 turkeys were neither of the forms that we now call merriami and 

 intermedia but the more southern, strictly Mexican form, M. gallo- 

 pavo gallopavo. 



That this wild turkey is not nearly so abundant as it was 50 years 

 ago is shown by the following quotation from Henry W. Henshaw 

 (1874) : 



The wild turkey is found abundantly from Apache throughout the mountain- 

 ous portion of Southeastern Arizona. In New Mexico it was met with further 

 to the north, in the mountains, and I was informed by Colonel Alexander that 

 he had found them in large numbers in the Raton Mountains, in extreme 

 Northern New Mexico. It breeds abundantly through the White Mountains, 

 Arizona, and about the middle of August several broods of the young, about two- 

 thirds grown, were met with. Toward the head of the Gila, in New Mexico, the 

 canons, in November, were found literally swarming with these magnificent 

 birds ; in many places the ground being completely tracked up where they had 

 been running. As many as eleven were killed by the members of a party during 

 a day's march. 



Nesting. — Two brief notes by Major Bendire (1892) are all that 

 he gives us on the nesting habits of this turkey, which are probably 

 not very different from those of other wild turkeys. He quotes 

 William Lloyd as saying that " near a river their nests would be made 

 on small inlets surrounded by reeds ; on the hills in shin-oak clumps." 

 He says that Frank Stephens found a nest on the east slope of the 

 Santa Rita Mountains in Arizona, " in the oak timber, just where the 

 first scattering pines commenced, at an altitude of perhaps 500 feet. 

 It was placed close to the trunk of an oak tree on a hillside, near 

 which a good-sized yucca grew, covering, apparently, a part of the 

 nest; the hollow in which the eggs were placed was about 12 inches 

 across and 3 inches deep." 



