54 WILD TURKEY. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE WILD TURKEY 



Having proved an incalculable advantage, as a cross on our domes- 

 tic bird, producing the great Norfolk, giving superior size and 

 flavour, the Royal Dublin Society, in order to encourage the pro- 

 motion of it, has offered a premium for its introduction. I have 

 procured some specimens, which I exhibited at their show ; the 

 birds being little known, in this country, I am indebted to the 

 valuable information of Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, John J. 

 Audubon, and Alexander Wilson, from whose work I have 

 endeavoured to make an abridged extract, which I hope will meet 

 with the approbation of my readers. 



In the following description we give the generic, as well as the 

 specific, characters of the wild turkey, in order to make it complete. 



THE MALE WILD TURKEY, 



When fully grown, is nearly four feet in length, and more than 

 five in extent. The bill is short and robust, measuring two inches 

 and a half to the corner of the mouth ; it is reddish, and horn 

 colour at tip; the superior mandible is vaulted, declining at tip, 

 and overhangs the inferior, being longer and wider. It is covered 

 at the base by a marked, cere-like membrane, in which the nostrils 

 are situated, they being half closed by a turgid membrane, and 

 opening downwards. The inferior mandible slightly ascends 

 towards the tip ; the aperture of the ear is defended by a fascicle 

 of small, decomposed feathers ; the tongue is fleshy and entire ; 

 the irides are dark brown ; the head, which is very small, in pro- 

 portion to the body, and half of the neck, are covered by a naked, 

 bluish skin, on which are a number of red, wart-like elevations, 

 on the superior portions, and whitish ones on the inferior, inter- 

 spersed with a few scattered, black, bristly hairs, and small feathers, 

 which are still less numerous on the neck. The naked skin ex- 

 tends farther downwards on the inferior surface of the neck, where it 

 is flaccid and membranous, forming an undulating appendage, on 

 the lower part of which are cavernous elevations, or wattles, a 

 wrinkled, fleshy, conic, extensible carbuncle, hairy and pencellated 

 at tip, arises from the bill, at its junction with the forehead. 

 When the bird is quiescent, this process is not much more than 



