64 Wright, Early Records of the Wild Turkey. [f^_ 



turkeys. In his " New England Trialls, 2nd edit. 1622 " » he holds 

 "no place hath more goose-berries and strawberries, nor better 

 Timber of all sorts you have in England, doth cover the Land, that 

 afford beasts of divers sorts and great flocks of Turkies, . . . . " In 

 his "A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New 

 England. London 1622" he says, 2 "The country aboundeth with 

 diversity of wild fowls as Turkeys, . . . ." In his "History of the 

 Plymouth Plantation", Wm. Bradford, the second governor of the 

 colony writes 3 " besides water fowle, ther was great store of wild 

 Turkies of which they took many" in the fall of 1621. In "New 

 Englands Plantation, London, 1630" Francis Higginson says 4 

 " Here are likewise abundance of Turkies often killed in the Woods, 

 farre greater then our English Turkies, and exceeding fat, sweet 

 and fleshy, for here they have aboundance of feeding all the yeere 

 long, as Strawberries, in Summer all places are full of them and all 

 manner of Berries and Fruits." 



In 1632, the well known "New English Canaan" by Thomas 

 Morton appears. 5 " Turkies there are, which divers times in great 

 flocks have sallied by our doores; and then a gunne (being com- 

 monly in redinesse), salutes them with such a courtesie, as makes 

 them take a turne in the Cooke roome. They daunce by the doore 

 so well. Of these there hath bin killed that have weighed forty 

 eight pounds a peece. They are by mainy degrees sweeter then 

 the tame Turkies of England, feede them how you can. I had a 

 Salvage who hath taken out his boy in a morning, and they have 

 brought home their loades about noone. I have asked them what 

 number they found in the woods, who have answered Neent 

 Metawna, which is a thousand that day; the plenty of them is 

 such in those parts. They are easily killed at rooste, because the 

 one being killed, the other sit fast neverthelesse, and this is no bad 

 commodity." "They make likewise some Coates of the Feathers 

 of Turkies, which they weave together with twine of their owne 

 makinge, very pritily:" 



1 Force, Peter. Tracts Relating to America. Vol. II, Washington, 1838, pp. 

 16, 14. 



2 Prince Soc. Publ. Vol. 18, 1890, p. 230 (orig. p. 26). 



3 Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls. Fourth Ser. Vol. Ill, 1856, p. 105. 



4 Force, P. Vol. I (1836), p. 10. 

 s Force, P. Vol. II, pp. 48, 22. 



