56 WILD TURKEY. 



are dusky. To this dusky portion succeeds a broad, effulgent, 

 metallic band, changing now to copper-colour or bronze gold, then 

 to violet or purple, according to the incidence of light, and at tip 

 is a terminal, narrow, velvet, black band, which does not exist in 

 the feathers of the neck and breast. The lower portion of the back, 

 and the upperjpart of the rump, are much darker, with less bril- 

 liant golden violaceous reflections. The feathers of the inferior part 

 of the rump have several concealed, narrow, ferruginous, transverse 

 lines, then a black band before the broad metallic space, which is 

 effulgent coppery. Beyond the terminal narrow black band, is 

 an unpolished bright bay fringe. The upper tail coverts are of 

 a bright bay colour, with numerous narrow bands of shining 

 greenish. All these coverts are destitute of the metallic band, and 

 the greater number have not the black, subterminal one. The vent 

 and thighs are plain, brownish cinerous, intermixed with paler. 

 The under tail coverts are blackish, glossed with coppery towards 

 the tip, and at tip are bright bay. 



The wings are concave, and rounded, hardly passing the origin 

 of the tail ; they have 28 quill feathers, of which the first is shortest, 

 and the fourth and fifth longest ; the second and ninth being nearly 

 equal. The smaller and middling wing coverts are coloured like 

 the feathers of the body, the greater coverts are copper violaceous, 

 having a black band near the whitish tip. Their concealed web 

 is blackish, sprinkled with dull ferruginous. In old birds the 

 exterior web is much worn by friction amongst the bushes, in con- 

 sequence of which those feathers exhibit a very singular unwebbed 

 curved appearance. The spurious wing, the primary coverts, and 

 the primaries, are plain blackish, banded with white, which is 

 interrupted by the -shaft, and sprinkled with. blackish. The se- 

 condaries have the white portion so large that they may as well 

 be described as white banded with blackish, and are, moreover, 

 tinged with ferruginous yellow ; this colour gradually encroaches 

 on the white, and then on the blackish, in proportion as the 

 feathers approach the body, so that the tertials are almost entirely 

 of that colour, being only sprinkled with blackish, and having 

 metallic reflections on the inner web. The anterior under wing 

 coverts are brownish black, the posterior ones being gray. The 

 tail measures more than a foot and a quarter ; is rounded and 

 composed of eighteen wide feathers. It is capable of being ex- 

 panded and elevated, together with the superior tail coverts, so as to 

 resemble a fan, when the bird parades, struts, or wheels. The tail 

 is ferruginous, mottled with black, and crossed by numerous narrow, 

 undulated lines of the same colour, which become confused on the 



