78 THE PEOPLE'S PRACTICAL POULTRY BOOK. 



white, the feathers on the lower part of the belly and thighs were edged 

 with black ; the tail white, the extreme feathers of which were scalloped 

 near the ends with black, the next circular row scalloped with a dusky 

 yellow ; the legs flesh color, having only the rudiments of spurs ; the claws 

 dusky." 



TEMMINCK, in his " Pigeons et Gallinaces" published at Amsterdam in 

 1813, says : " The crested turkey is only a .variety or sport of nature in this 

 species, differing only in the possession of a feathered crest, which is some- 

 times white, sometimes black. These crested turkeys are very rare. 

 Mademoiselle BACKER, in her magnificent menagerie near the Hague, had a 

 breed of crested turkeys of a beautiful Isabelle yellow, inclining to chestnut ; 

 all had full crests of pure white." 



The Rev. E. S. DIXON, in his work entitled " The Dove-cote and the 

 Aviary," quotes the above passage from TEMMINCK, and another from the 

 work of Lieut. BYAM, descriptive of a race of crested wild turkeys in Mexico. 

 The extract from Mr. BYAM I will not quote, as it is quite evident that 

 the bird described by him was not a turkey, but a curassow. The con- 

 clusion that Mr. DIXON arrived at was, that there must have been a wild 

 race of crested turkeys from which the crested birds described by ALBIN 

 and TEMMINCK had descended. I need hardly state that there is not the 

 slightest possible foundation for such an opinion, nor for believing in the 

 existence of wild crested fowls, which is also maintained by the writer. 

 Crested turkeys are a variety, not a species ; but it is singular that a variety 

 that was so much admired many years since should have passed out of sight, 

 at least so far as Europe is concerned." 



It is singular that this particular variety of an American species should 

 now be utterly unknown in its native country, lost entirely in Europe, and 

 only recovered from Africa. When could the breed have been taken there, 

 and how came it to be preserved among the semi-savage tribes of the in- 

 terior, while it was lost to the civilized races of Europe? Of the origin of 

 this crested breed nothing is now known, but those who are acquainted with 

 the theory of analogous variation, as propounded by DARWIN, will have no 

 difficulty in understanding how such a breed could originate, seeing that 

 several allied genera of crested birds, such as Pavo, Lopophorus, etc., exist. 



