WILD TURKEY. 215 



and more than five in extent. The bill is short and robust, measuring 

 two inches and a half to the corner of the mouth ; it is reddish, and 

 horn color at tip ; the superior mandible is vaulted, declining at tip, 

 and overhangs the inferior, being longer and wider ; it is covered at 

 base by a naked cere-like membrane, in which the nostrils are situated, 

 they being half closed by a turgid membrane, and opening downwards ; 

 the inferior mandible slightly ascends towards the tip : the aperture of 

 the ear is defended by a fascicle of small, decomposed feathers ; the 

 tongue is fleshy and entire ; the irides are dark brown. The head, 

 which is very small in proportion to the body, and half of the neck, are 

 covered by a naked bluish skin, on which are a number of red wart-like 

 elevations on the superior portion, and whitish ones on the inferior, 

 interspersed with a few scattered, black, bristly hairs, and small 

 feathers, which are still less numerous on the neck ; the naked skin 

 extends farther downwards on the inferior surface of the neck, where it 

 is flaccid and membranous, forming an undulating appendage, on the 

 lower part of which are cavernous elevations or wattles. A wrinkled, 

 fleshy, conic, extensible caruncle, hairy and penicellated at tip, arises 

 from the bill at its junction with the forehead ; when the bird is quies- 

 cent, this process is not much more than an inch and a half long ; but 

 when he is excited by love or rage, it becomes elongated, so as to cover 

 the bill entirely, and depend two or three inches below it. The neck is 

 of a moderate length and thickness, bearing on its inferior portion a 

 pendent fascicle of black, rigid hairs, about nine inches long. The 

 body is thick, somewhat elongated, and covered with long, truncated 

 feathers ; these are divided into very light fuliginous down at base, 

 beyond which they are dusky ; to this dusky portion succeeds a broad, 

 effulgent, metallic band, changing now to copper color or bronze-gold, 

 then to violet or purple, according to the incidence of light, and at tip 

 is a terminal, narrow, velvet-black band, which does not exist in the 

 feathers of the neck and breast ; the lower portion of the back, and the 

 upper part of the rump, are much darker, with less brilliant golden- 

 violaceous reflections ; the feathers of the inferior part of the rump 

 have several concealed, narrow, ferruginous, transverse lines, then a 

 black band before the broad metallic space, which is effulgent coppery ; 

 beyond the terminal narrow black band is an unpolished bright bay 

 fringe. The upper tail coverts are of a bright bay color, with numerous 

 narrow bars of shining greenish ; all these coverts are destitute of the 

 metallic band, and the greater number have not the black subterminal 

 one ; the vent and thighs are plain brownish-cinereous, intermixed with 

 paler ; the under tail coverts are blackish, glossed with coppery towards 

 the tip, and at tip are bright bay. 



The wings are concave and rounded, hardly surpassing the origin of 

 the tail ; they have twenty-eight quill feathers, of which the first is 



