74 Wright, Early Records of the Wild Turkey. [j^ 



They are very plentiful in this quarter, and considered the largest 

 known throughout the western country, many of them weighing 

 from thirty to forty pounds, and sometimes so overburthened with 

 fat that they fly with difficulty." In 1818, Rev. John Hecke- 

 welder's " History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations " 

 speaks of the turkey coats. 1 "The feathers, generally those of 

 turkey and goose, are so curiously arranged and interwoven to- 

 gether with thread and twine, which they prepare from the rind 

 or bark of the wild hemp or nettle, that ingenuity and skill cannot 

 be denied them. 



Four years later, Wm. H. Blane (1. c. p. 88) when near Smithfield 

 on the Youghiogheny River, writes " I observed that two hunters, 

 who had just come in with some turkies they had killed, were each 

 of them carrying one of the long heavy rifles peculiar to the Ameri- 

 cans." In 1832, Mrs. Trollope when at Brownsville, was 2 "re- 

 galed luxuriously on wild turkey . . . . " The same year, Vigne 

 presents his " Six Months in America." When at Moshanan Creek 

 he finds (Vol. I, pp. 88, 89) " The winged game of these forests are 

 the wild turkey, which being pursued with avidity by the sports- 

 man, is becoming more scarce every day: it is larger than the tame 

 turkey and its plumage closely resembles that of the dark-coloured 

 domesticated bird, but is rather more brilliant." The third note 

 to be presented in 1832 is the rather general account of Hinton. 3 

 "The native country of the wild turkey extends from the north- 

 western territory of the United States to the Isthmus of Panama. 

 In Canada, and the now densely-peopled parts of the United States, 

 they were formerly very abundant; but like the Indian and the 

 buffalo they have been compelled to yield to the destructive in- 

 genuity of the white settlers, often wantonly exercised, and to 

 seek refuge in the remotest parts of the interior. On hearing the 

 slightest noise, they conceal themselves in the grass, or among 

 shrubs, and thus frequently escape the hunter, or the sharp-eyed 

 birds of prey: and the sportsman is unable to find them during the 



« Memoirs Hist. Soc. Penn. Vol. XII, 1881, p. 203. 



8 Trollope, Mrs. Domestic Manners of the Americans. 4 edit. London and 

 N. Y., p. 162. 



3 Hinton, J. H. The History and Topography of the United States. London, 

 1832, 2 vols. Vol. II, p. 177. 



