80 THE WILD TURKEY. 



This reading, however, has not produced a final 

 decision, since the indigenous country of the turkey 

 has remained a question with the learned ornitho- 

 logists; those opposed to the pretension of the 

 ancients, asserting that the Greek Meleagris, in 

 reality, was not a turkey, but gallina Africana, in 

 modern English, a Guinea fowl. The error of sup- 

 posing this bird of ancient Greece to have been a 

 turkey, is said to have resulted from an observation 

 made by Aristotle, that the bird laid spotted eggs, 

 as our English turkeys do ; but it is also observable, 

 that such is not the case with the turkeys of other 

 countries. The disputants on this side the question 

 assign the honour of being the indigenous country 

 of the turkey to America ; and the fact that turkeys 

 were unknown to Europe, until the discovery of 

 America, seems to afford considerable support to ar- 

 guments on that side. Moreover, the gallina Afri- 

 cana, as we learn from Kennet's Parochial Anti- 

 quities, was known in England as early as the year 

 1277. 



The turkey was seen in America by the first dis- 

 coverers, and intituled, by the Spanish doctor Fer- 

 nandez, gallus Indicus, and gallus pavo, the peacock 

 of the Indies. They were both in a wild and do- 

 mesticated state in America, on the arrival of the 

 Spaniards, the wild being represented as of the 

 largest size, reaching even the weight of sixty 

 pounds, and of a superior flavour, but the flesh of a 

 red colour. There is, however, some discrepancy 

 in these accounts, certain of our voyagers repre- 

 senting the wild turkeys of Virginia as carrion, 



