28 TJie Turkey. 



SECTION IV. 



The Turkey. 



Of the Turkey, or Meleagris, Buffon 

 and others assert there is but one species, 

 and the only varieties I am aware of, in 

 this country, are the copper and white, 

 the former long in great esteem ; the lat- 

 ter of a most delicate whiteness, contrasted 

 witli its red head, said to have been origin- 

 ally imported from Holland : and the Nor- 

 folk black already described. 



On the etymology of the word turkey, I 

 am altogether at a loss, unless we may sup- 

 pose such a name to have been ludicrously 

 bestowed from the ostentatious strut of the 

 bird, by way of comparison with the i>omj>- 

 oiis gravity of the Turk, an idea perhaps 

 countenanced by the erroneous notion that 

 turkies were indigenous to Africa, and had 

 been originally imported from thence to 



; ^*->. 



