PHASIANID.E — THE PHEASANTS — MELEAGllIS. 523 



Meleagris Mexicana, Gould. 



THE MEXICAN TURKEY. 



Afcleac/n's Afexicana, Gould, Pr. Zool. Soc. 185G, 61. — Baird, Birds N. Amcr. 1858,618. 



Iii. Rqj. U. S. Ag. Dcpt. for 1800, 288. — Elliot, 111. B. N. A. II. pi. 38.— CouES, I'r. 



A. N. Sc. 186G, 93. 

 Mdcaijris (jallopavo, Gkav, Catul. Br. Mus. Gallin.x, 1867, 42. 



Sp. Cii.\I!. Naked skin of head and neck livid blue ; legs red ; general color copper 

 bronze, with copper and green reflections, each feather with a narrow black border. All 

 the (juills brown, closely barred with white. Tail feathers chestnut, narrowly barred with 

 black, with a very broad subterniinal black bar, and the tips light brownish-yellow or 

 cream-color. Upper tail coverts also with pale, almost white tip. 



Female smaller, and less brilliant. 



Length, 48.50 ; wing, 19.00; tail, 14.G0 ; tarsus, G. 50; bill from nostril, 1.04. 



Ilah. Southern Rocky Mountains, ami from Western Texas to Arizona, south to 

 Orizaba. 



Persons familiar with the wild turkey of the United States, east of the 

 Missouri Plains and of Eastern Texas, have Leen struck on going westward, 

 after crossing the plains of the Pecos liiver, in Texas, and reaching New 

 Mexico and Arizona, to find a wild turkey which, while presenting the 

 general features of the Eastern bird, has yet various peculiarities, the most 

 striking consisting in the creamy-white or fulvous tips to the tail feathers and 

 the upper tail coverts, these being chestnut brown in the other, and in the 

 white instead of dark flesh. Other difterences, as the lighter shade of the 

 chestnut, and the tendency to a greenish rather than purplisli gloss, seem 

 of less importance. 



A careful consideration of the subject brings us to the conclusion that 

 these two series form, if not distinct species, at least strongly marked and 

 permanent races, and furtliermore, that the Rocky Mountain bird, extending 

 as it does southward through Mexico, is really the original of our domestic 

 ttirkey. It is well known that at the period of the Spanish disco\-ery the 

 nati\'e turkey was widely domesticated in Mexico, and was introduced thence 

 first into Europe, and then into North America. Furthermore, the native 

 bird of Eastern North America does not occur in IMexico at all. The mark- 

 ings of the domestic turkey are sometimes exactly like those of wild birds 

 of M. Mcxicana, while they never assume the plumage of the wild M. cjallo- 

 pavo of the North. 



According to Dr. Sartorius, the wild Mexican bird breeds in March or 

 April, the female laying three to twelve spotted eggs, which are hatched out 

 in thirty days. Dr. Coues and Dr. Palmer state that the species is not 



