56 BULLETIN OF THE NUTTALL 



They daunce by the doore so well .... I had a Salvage who hath 

 taken out his boy in a morning, and they have brought home their 

 loades about noone. I have asked them what number they found 

 in the woods, who have answered Neent Metawna, which is a tho- 

 sand that day ; the plenty of them is such in those parts. They 

 are easily killed at rooste, because the one being killed, the other 

 sit fast neverthelesse, and this is no bad commodity." * According 

 to John Josselyn, they began early to decline. This author, writ- 

 ing in 1672, says: "I have also seen three score broods of young 

 Turkies on the side of a Marsh, sunning of themselves in a morning 

 betimes, but this was thirty years since, the English and the In- 

 dians having now destroyed the breed, so that 't is very rare to 

 meet with a wild Turkie in the Woods ; but some of the English 

 bring up great store of the wild kind, which remain about their 

 Houses as tame as ours in England-." t This would seem to indi- 

 cate that the Wild Turkey was often domesticated in Massachusetts, 

 and renders it probable that our domestic stock was by no means 

 wholly derived,* as is commonly supposed, from Mexico. Besides 

 Josselyn's statement of their domestication in New England, I have 

 met with other statements to the same effect, and can cite numer- 

 ous instances of its domestication in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and 

 Virginia early in the seventeenth century. J 



Under the name of " Pheasants," Morton and others make un- 

 questionable reference to the Pinnated Grouse (Ciqndonia cupido), 

 showing that it was once a common denizen of this State. A few 

 pairs are still known to exist on the islands of Naushon and Mar- 

 tha's Vineyard, where they have of late been stringently protected 

 by law. 



The Wild Pigeon (Ectopistes migratoria), though by no means 

 yet extirpated from the State, has greatly decreased here in num- 

 bers during the present generation, and has not been seen within 

 the present century in nearly so great abundance as in earlier 

 times. Space will allow of reference to but few of the many ac- 

 counts of its former almost incredible numbers. Morton refers to 

 the presence of " Millions of Turtle doves on the greene boughes ; 

 which sate pecking of the ripe pleasant grapes, that were supported 



* New English Canaan, pp. 69, 70. 

 + New Englands Rarities, p. 9. 



+ On the domesticability of the Wild Turkey of the United States, see Bull. 

 Mus. Comp. ZpoL, Vol. II, pp. 343-352. 



