134 THE TURKEY. 



the time during which man has had dominion over 

 the earth and its brute inhabitants ? The obscurity 

 which hangs over the domestication of this bird, and 

 which there is little chance of clearing away, except 

 by industrious ferreting amongst old family records 

 and memorandum books, shows that those who carried 

 it to the Old World, whence we obtained our stock, 

 doubtless, had no idea of the value of what they were 

 transporting ; but probably regarded it like any other 

 remarkable production of nature a macaw or a tor- 

 tois. The young would be distributed among friends 

 with the same feeling that golden pheasants and such 

 like are with us ; these again would thrive and in- 

 crease, and the nation would suddenly find itself in 

 the possession of a race, not of pleasing pets, but of a 

 valuable, prolific, and hardy stock of poultry. 



That we cannot fix the precise time, nor learn any 

 of the circumstances which relate to the introduction 

 of the turkey into Europe, may cause some astonish- 

 ment, when we reflect that it must have occurred at 

 some period after the conquest of America, and not 

 probably till after a considerable lapse of years, and 

 the establishment of the Spaniards in Mexico. Cortes, 

 in 1519, landed at the place where Yera Cruz now 

 stands, but it was not until after two years of labori- 

 ous warfare that the Spanish power became in the 

 ascendant, and opened the way for Spanish emigration 

 to Mexico. There is, however, reason to believe that 

 previously to the Spanish conquest, the turkey was in 

 a domesticated condition, both in Mexico and in the 

 adjacent islands ; for Oviedo, who embarked for the 

 "West Indies, in 1514, and resided as governor of the 

 fprt and harbor of St. Domingo, in the island of Hayti, 

 then called Hispaniola, published among other works, 

 (some very voluminous,) one entitled Tradado de la 

 Historia Natural de las Indias, which was published 

 at Toledo, in 1526. In this work, he describes the 

 turkey as a kind of peacock, (pavo,) abounding in New 

 Spain, whence numbers had been transported to the 



