MELEAGRID^ — THE TURKEYS. 411 



It is to this race that we are indebted for the origin of our domestic 

 Turkey, and not to that of the eastern parts of North America. 



Habits. There is very little on record as to the possession of distinctive 

 peculiarities by this race of North American Turkeys. If, as is now generally 

 supposed, it be the original source whence the domestic fowl was derived, we 

 are all sufficiently conversant with its performances in the barnyard, and 

 its excellences for the table. 



Specimens of its eggs collected in Arizona exhibit no noteworthy dif- 

 ferences from the gallopavo. 



In the accompanying foot-note we reproduce an article on the origin of 

 the domestic Turkey, by Professor Baird, published in the Report of the 

 Agricultural Department for 1866, which contains some points of interest, 

 bearing on the origin of the domestic Turkey and the habits of the Mexican 

 variety. 1 



1 As with nearly all the animals which have been brought under domestication by man, the 

 true origin of the common barnyard Turkey was for a long time a matter of uncertainty. As a 

 well-known writer (Martin) observes : "So involved in obscurity is the early history of the 

 Turkey, and so ignorant do the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ajjpear to have 

 been about it, that they have regarded it as a bird known to the ancients by the name of 

 Mehagris (really the Guinea-fowl or Pintado), a mistake which was not cleared up till the middle 

 of the eighteenth century. The appellation of "turkey," which this bird bears in England, 

 arose from the supposition that it came originally from the country of that name, — an idea 

 entirely erroneous, as it owes its origin to the New World. Mexico was first discovered by 

 Grigalva in 1518. Oviedo speaks of the Turkey as a kind of Peacock abounding in New Spain, 

 which had already in 1526 been transported in a domestic state to the West India Islands and 

 the Spanish Main, where it was kept by the Christian colonists. 



It is reported to have been introduced into England in 1541. In 1573 it had become the 

 Christmas fare of the farmer. 



Among the luxuries belonging to the high condition of civilization exhibited by the Mexican 

 nation at the time of the Spanish conquest was the possession by Montezuma of one of the most 

 extensive zoological gardens on record, numbering nearly all the animals of that country, with 

 others brought at much expense from great distances, and it is stated that Turkeys were supplied 

 as food in large numbers daily to the beasts of prey in the menagerie of the Mexican emperor. 

 No idea can be formed at the present day of the date when this bird was first reclaimed in Mexico 

 from its wild condition, although probably it had been known in a domestic state for many 

 centuries. There can, however, be no question of the fact that it was habitually reared by the 

 Mexicans at the time of the conquest, and introduced from Mexico or New Spain into Europe 

 early in the sixteenth century, either directly or from the West India Islands, into which it had 

 been previously carried. 



It has, however, always been a matter of surprise that .the Wild Turkey of eastern North 

 America did not assimilate more closely to the domestic bird in color, habits, and bj' interbreed- 

 ing, although until recently no suspicion was entertained that they might belong to different 

 species. Such, however, now appears to be the fact, as I will endeavor to show. 



The proposition I present is, that there are two species, or at least races, of Wild Turkey in 

 North America, — one confined to the more eastern and southern United States, the other to the 

 southern Eocky Mountains and adjacent part of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona ; 

 that the latter extends along Eastern Mexico as far south at least as Orizaba, and that it is from 

 this Mexican species, and not from that of eastern North America, that this domestic Turkey is 

 derived. 



In the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1856 (page 61), Mr. Gould charac- 

 terizes as new a Wild Turkey from the mines of Real del Norte, in Mexico, under the name of 



