540 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



applied in popular language to any one remark- 

 able for domineering and pompous disposition, 

 or appearance, and thus became attached to 

 the turkey cock, and gradually modified. 

 The reader can take his choice. 



The original wild turkey is of necessity 

 disappearing fast from the United States, as 

 settlement extends and population increases ; 

 and, unless preserved in wood coverts as a 

 game bird before it is too late, the time cannot 

 be distant when it will be extinct except in its 

 descendants. It is a fowl that can only live in 

 its original condition upon ample ranges of forest 

 or woodland, where the ground is quite untainted, 

 and it can find sufficient subsistence in its 

 own wild way. Domestication has not improved, 

 but actually decreased its size, for wild gobblers 

 have occasionally been shot weighing 60 lbs., 

 whilst the heaviest American Bronze which we 

 have record of, fed up for exhibition, only reached 

 46 lbs., and very few exceed or even reach 40 

 lbs. Domestication has also reduced hardihood 

 in regard to weather or exposure, whilst increasing 

 It in regard to domestic conditions. Thus the 

 turkeys long bred in Norfolk and Cambridge 

 have become very much smaller than the wild 

 breed, and would perish under exposure which 

 the wild race would brave with impunity ; but 

 on the other hand they can be reared with 

 success in large numbers, where the wild race 

 would die from disease, in conformity to the 

 law explained in the first chapter of this book. 



The domestic varieties of turkeys have under- 

 gone considerable transformation during the 

 last generation. About 1865 those kept in 

 England consisted mainly of the 

 Domestic black Norfolk breed, which largely 



Varieties. supplied the Christmas market, 

 seldom then exceeding about 22 

 lbs. for full-grown cocks and say 14 lbs. for 

 hens, and of which there were pure white and 

 solid fawn-coloured varieties of about the same 

 size ; and the larger Cambridge turkeys, weigh- 

 ing about 24 lbs. and 16 lbs., of a beautiful 

 bronze and black and white plumage, known 

 as variegated. The birds exhibited were gener- 

 ally of this latter type, but of course larger, the 

 old gobbler in the first prize pen at Birmingham 

 in 1865 weighing 30 lbs., and the hen 17 lbs., 

 which may be taken as about the heaviest weights 

 obtainable in England at that time. About the 

 same period birds of much the same stamp as 

 these last, but somewhat finer because occasional 

 crosses of the larger wild bird had always more or 

 less taken place, began to be more systematically 

 crossed and bred in that way in America, 

 resulting in the magnificent American Bronze 

 breed, in which white marking was much 



diminished, whilst colour and gloss were 

 improved, and the size was so increased that 

 individual specimens of full-sized old gobblers 

 reached as much as 40 lbs. Some of these birds 

 were imported • by English breeders, and crossed 

 upon the Cambridge, impro~ving them both in 

 colour and. in size. A Turkey Club was also 

 formed, which further stimulated the breeding 

 of these fine birds. Finally the American 

 Bronze ideal was fully accepted for this, the 

 largest and finest race of birds, and the standard 

 for adult gobblers raised to 34 lbs. ; and so 

 much American blood was bred into them, 

 that English and American Bronze turkeys 

 may now be regarded as practically the same. 

 Meanwhile American breeders had not been 

 idle, but introduced more and more of the fast- 

 vanishing wild blood, breeding and rearing 

 with such success that gobblers of 45 and 46 

 lbs. have occasionally been seen in exhibition 

 pens. 



The older and smaller domestic varieties 

 notwithstanding hold their ground, for the 

 obvious reason that there is no general market 

 demand for birds beyond a certain size. Let 

 any one ask himself how he could manage with 

 a turkey weighing 40 lbs., from a table point 

 of view, and he will at once understand why 

 black or white turkeys whose top figure is only 

 about 20 lbs., are still so largely bred in England 

 and Normandy. It is the really marketable 

 kind of bird, 10 lbs. to 15 lbs. being the weights 

 most in demand ; and moreover a great many 

 people consider (with real foundation in our 

 opinion)that the Black and White whole-coloured 

 birds are somewhat superior to the Bronze in 

 juiciness of flesh and delicacy of skin, both of 

 which points have money value. At exhibitions 

 where only o»e class is provided for turkeys, 

 it is of course almost useless for any to compete 

 except the immense and magnificently-coloured 

 Bronze breed ; but at Birmingham extra classes 

 are still offered for other varieties, and these 

 are still occupied by the older sorts. Such 

 classes rarely have many entries of the Black 

 Norfolk birds, whose dark plumage makes them 

 suffer by more direct comparison with the 

 immense Bronze exhibits, with which they 

 cannot compete : still very fine specimens of 

 these sometimes appear, the plumage being 

 all black except a few touches of white occasion- 

 ally, the less the better. The beaks of these 

 are dark horn-colour to black, and the legs 

 slaty black or lead-colour. 



The entries in such extra classes chiefly 

 now consist as a rule of Whites and Fawns, 

 both very old breeds, as already mentioned. 

 The Whites are often entered or described as 



