76 Wright, Early Records of the Wild Turkey. [jan. 



use mantells made both of Turkey feathers and other fowle, so 

 prettily wrought and woven with threads, that nothing could be 

 discerned but the feathers, which were exceeding warme and hand- 

 some." In another place, he writes " Nor (do they) bring up tame 

 poultry, albeit they have great stoore of turkies, nor keepe birdes, 

 squirrels, nor tame partridges, .... In March and April they live 

 much upon their weeres, and feed on fish, turkies . . . . " Finally 

 comes a more general statement. "Turkeys there be great store, 

 wild in the woods, like phesants in England, forty in a company, 

 as big as our tame here, and it is an excellent fowle, and so passing 

 good meat, as I maye well saie, it is the best of any kind of flesh 

 which I have ever yet eaten there." In "A True Declaration of 

 the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia, .... London, 1610" we have 

 the following : l " The Turkeye of that Countrie are great, and fat, 

 and exceeding in plentie." In 1613, Alex. Whitaker says 2 "The 

 woods be everywhere full of wilde Turkies, which abound, and will 

 runne as swift as a Greyhound." In 1614, Ralph Hamor, in the 

 same country, finds 3 " There are fowle of divers sorts, .... wild 

 Turkeyes much bigger then our English Cranes." Four years 

 later, 1618, in "Newes of Sr. Walter Rauleigh . . . ." there appears 4 

 "you shall not sleepe on the groun nor eat any new flesh till it be 

 salted, two or three hours, which otherwise, will breed a most 

 dangerous fluxe, so will the eating of .... Turkies." A "Briefe 

 Intelligence from Virginia by Letters, etc., 1624," "Virginias 

 Verger 1625," and "Some later Advertisements touching His 

 Majesties Care for Virginia 1624" — all three remark 5 the abun- 

 dance of turkeys in Virginia. 



In 1631, Henry Fleet, Early Indian Trader notes that 6 "the 

 woods (above Washington) do swarm with "turkeys. Three 

 years later, Father Andrew White in "A Briefe Relation of the 

 Voyage into Maryland" observes 7 "Their weapons are a bow and 



« Force, P. Vol. Ill, p. 13. 



2 Hakluyt Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes. By Samuel Purchas. Hak- 

 luyt Soc. Extra Series Glasgow 1905-1907. Vol. 19, p. 115. 



3 ibid., Vol. 19, p. 97. 



4 Force, P. Vol. Ill, p. 17. 



s Hakluyt Posthumus. Vol. 19, p. 209, Vol. 20, p. 134. 



« Neill, Rev. E. D., Founders of Maryland. Albany, 1876, p. 27. 



7 Narratives of Early Maryland. 1633-1684. N. Y., 1910, pp. 34, 43, 44. 



