352 Wright, Early Records of the Wild Turkey. [^y 



color, and the same cry." Rasles in the Illinois country, 1723 

 records,^ " we can hardly travel a league without meeting a prodigi- 

 ous multitude of Turkeys, which go in troops, sometimes to the 

 number of 200. They are larger than those that are seen in France. 

 I had the curiosity to weigh one of them, and it weighed thirty-six 

 livres. They have a sort of hairy beard at the neck, which is half 

 a foot long." Poisson at Bayogoulas on the Mississippi, 1727 

 writes that his host ^ " neglected nothing for our comfort ; he regaled 

 us with wild turkey (these are very like domestic turkeys but they 

 have a better flavor)." 



In the southern English colonies, we have a similar set of obser- 

 vations. According to Fiske,' "On that same voyage (Chris- 

 topher Newport, carried home a coop of plump turkeys, the first 

 that ever graced an English bill of fare." 



Of the turkeys in Carolina John Lawson writes in 1714 as fol- 

 lows: ^ "There are great flocks of these in Carolina. I have seen 

 about five hundred in a flock; some of them are very large. I 

 never weighed any myself, but have been informed of one that 

 weighed near sixty pound weight. I have seen half a turkey, feed 

 eight hungry men two meals. Sometimes the wild breed with the 

 tame ones, which they reckon makes them very hardy, as I believe 

 it must. I see no manner of difference betwixt the wild turkies 

 and the tame ones; only the wild are ever of one color, viz: a 

 dark gray or brown, and are excellent food. They feed on acorns, 

 huckleberries, and many other sorts of berries that Carolina affords. 

 The eggs taken from the nest and hatched under a hen will yet retain 

 a wild nature, and commonly leave you and run wild at last, and 

 will never be got into a house to roost but always perch on some 

 high tree hard by the house, and separate themselves from the 

 tame sort, although, at the same time, they tread and breed to- 

 gether. I have been informed that if you take these wild eggs 

 when just on the point of being hatched, and dip them (for some 

 little time) in a bowl of milk-warm water, it will take off their 



1 Ibid., Vol. LXVII, p. 169. 



2 Ibid., Vol. LXVII, p. 297. 



» Fiske, John. Old Virginia and her Neighbors. Boston and New York, 1897, 

 Vol. I, p. 122. 



* Lawson, John. The History of Carolina, etc. London, 1714. Reprint, 

 Raleigh, N. C, 1860, pp. 244, 245. 



