994 TUI— TURKE V 



considered to be allied to the Laridse (Gull), but now regarded by 

 the best authorities as having little to do with them. 



TUI, the common name in New Zealand for the Parson- 

 BIRD (p. 691). 



TUEKEY,^ an abbreviation for Turkey-Cock or Turkey-Hen 

 as the case may be, a well-known, large, domestic, gallinaceous bird. 

 How it came by this name has long been a matter of discussion, 

 for it is certain that this valuable animal was introduced to Europe 

 from the New World, and in its introduction had nothing to do 

 with Turkey or with Turks, even in the old and extended sense in 

 which that term was applied to all Mahometans. But it is almost 

 as unquestionable that the name was originally applied to the bird 

 which we know as the Guinea-Fowl (p. 399), and there is no 

 doubt that some authors in the 16th and 17th centuries curiously 

 confounded these two species. As both birds became more common 

 and better known, the distinction was gradually perceived, and the 

 name "Turkey" clave to that from the New World — possibly because 

 of its repeated call-note — to be syllabled turh, turk, turk, whereby 

 it may be almost said to have named itself (cf. Notes and Queries, 

 ser. 6, iii. pp. 23, 369). But even Linnaeus could not clear himself 

 of the confusion, and, possibly following Sibbald, unhajDpily mis- 

 applied the name Meleagris, undeniably belonging to the Guinea- 

 Fowl, as the generic term for what we now know as the Turkey, 

 adding thereto as its specific designation the word gallopavo, taken 

 from the Gallopavus of Gesner, who, though not wholly free from 

 error, was less mistaken than some of his contemporaries and even 

 successors.^ 



The Turkey, so far as we know, was first described by Oviedo 

 in his Suniario de la Natural Historia de las Indias^ (cap. xxxvi.), 

 said to have been published in 1527. He, not unnaturally, 

 includes both Curassows (p. -126) and Turkeys in one category, 

 calling both " Pavos " (Peafowls) ; but he carefully distinguishes 

 between them, pointing out among other things that though the 

 latter make a wheel (hacen la rueda) of their tail, this was not so 

 grand or so beautiful as that of the Spanish " Pavo," and he gives 

 a faithful though short description of the Turkey. The chief 



^ For Turkey-Buzzard see Vultuke. 



^ The French Coq and Poule d'Inde (whence Dindon) involve no contradiction, 

 looking to the general idea of what India then was. One of the earliest German 

 names for the bird, Kalekuttisch Hiin (whence the Scandinavian Kalkon), must 

 have arisen through some mistake at present inexplicable ; but this does not 

 refer, as is generally supposed, to Calcutta, but to Calicut on the Malabar coast 

 {cf. Notes and Queries, ser. 6, x. p. 185). 



^ Purchas {Pilgrimes, iii. p. 995) in 1625 quoted both from this and from the 

 same author's Hystoria General, said to have been published a few years later. 

 I know Oviedo's earlier work only by the reprint of 1852. 



