^'°Vji4^^] Wright, Early Records of the Wild Turkey. 341 



nois, after he had received the king's permission to return to the 

 Kingdom, (before 1450 or 1456) .... Equally false is the account 

 given by Bouche in his History of Provence, that Rene, or Renatus, 

 king of Naples and duke of Anjou, first brought turkeys into the 

 kingdom, and reared them in abundance at Rosset. . . . The 

 assertion, often repeated, but never indeed proved, that they were 

 first brought to France by Philip de Chabot, admiral under 

 Francis I, is much more probable. Chabot died in 1543; and what 

 Scaliger says, that in 1540 some turkeys were still remaining in 

 France, may be considered as alluding to the above circumstance. 

 This much however is certain, that Gyllius, who died in 1555, gave 

 soon after the first scientific description of them, which has been 

 inserted both by Gesner and Aldrovandus in their works on orni- 

 thology. The same year the first figure of them was published by 

 Belon. About the same time they were described also bj^ La 

 Bruyere-Champier, who expressly remarks that they had a few 

 years before been brought to France from the Indian islands dis- 

 covered by the Portuguese and the Spaniards. How then could 

 Barrington assert that this Frenchman meant the East and not 

 the West Indies! They must, however, have been a long time 

 scarce in France; for, in the year 1566, when Charles IX passed 

 through Amiens, the magistrates of that place did not disdain to 

 send him, among other presents, twelve turkeys. This information 

 seems to agree with the account often quoted, that the first turkeys 

 were served up, as a great rarity, at the wedding dinner of that 

 monarch in the year 1570; but it seems the breed of these fowls was 

 not very common under Charles IX; for they are not named in 

 the ordinances of 1563 and 1567, in which all other fowls are men- 

 tioned. In the year 1603, Henry IV caused higglers to be punished 

 who carried away turkeys from the country villages without paying 

 for them, under a pretence that they were for the use of the queen. 

 I shall here also remark, that I can no where find that the Jesuits 

 are entitled to the merit of having introduced these fowls into 

 France. 



"As these American fowls must have been carried to Germany 

 through other lands, we cannot expect to find them in that country 

 at an earlier period. Gesner, who published his Ornithology in 

 1555, seems not even to have seen them. We are, however, assured 



