284 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



African origin, while in Egypt the Arabic name is Dik 

 rumij fowl of Turkey. 



Precisely why it should have been called turkey by 

 the English it is hard to say, except that as Turkey was 

 a part of the Far East, it may have been supposed to 

 have some relation to India. It has been suggested 

 that the name by which we know the bird is a corrup- 

 tion of a Hebrew word tukki, said to mean peacock, 

 that this term was applied to the turkey, when it was 

 received in Spain, by the Jews, who then monopolized 

 the business of selling poultry, and that from this point 

 of first introduction the name spread with the bird over 

 a part of Europe. 



This bird, taken to Europe by the Spaniards soon 

 after the conquest, was the Mexican turkey. 



The common wild turkey once found over most of 

 eastern North America was for a long time the only 

 form known in the United States, and this was thought 

 to be the progenitor of all the domesticated races of 

 turkeys. In 1856, however, the English naturalist, 

 Gould, described the Mexican turkey as a distinct 

 species, and much later other observers called attention 

 to a turkey from Florida differing slightly from the 

 ordinary wild turkey, and to yet another different 

 one from the Rio Grande. Later still, E. W. Nelson 

 found that the turkey of Arizona presented constant, if 

 slight, differences from the wild turkey of the plains 

 and that of Mexico, and described it as Merriam's 

 turkey. 



To the untrained eye the differences between certain 



