136 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



indebted for one of the most common, but at the same time one 

 of the most choice, of all the barnyard-fowls that have, by the in- 

 genuity of man, been reclaimed from their native haunts to minister 

 to his daily wants. 



" In a state of domestication, the wild turkeys, though kept sepa- 

 rate from tame individuals, lose the brilliancy of their plumage in 

 the third generation, becoming plain brown, and having here and 

 there white feathers intermixed." 



Wild turkeys often, when opportunities offer, associate with tame 

 ones, and with great advantage to the latter, as it improves the 

 stock, making them more hardy, and consequently less difficult to 

 raise. 



It is a subject of somewhat curious interest to examine the 

 various notions or theories that have been broached by different 

 writers, by way of explaining in a satisfactory manner how this 

 fowl, entirely indigenous to the Western Hemisphere, should have 

 received the appellation of Turkey; for this name would very 

 naturally seem to imply that the bird was a native of the East, 

 rather than of the New World. 



This seeming paradox may, however, be reconciled by a refer- 

 ence to the history of the period of its introduction into England. 

 The Turks were then in their zenith of glory, or, rather, were in 

 their most lawless state of rapine and plunder ; insomuch that the 

 whole nation was dreaded as well as despised throughout all Chris- 

 tendom. 



Their ships, almost unmolested, swept the waters of the Medi- 

 terranean, while their fleet galleys laid waste the sunny shores of 

 Italia, as well as carried devastation along the coasts of Hispania 

 and the adjacent countries. As a nation, they were nothing more 

 than a horde of barbarians, a band of pirates, leagued together for 

 the purpose of carnage and pillage ; their very name a byword to 

 all the more civilized people of the Old World, a token of con- 

 tempt, a symbol of cruelty, cowardice, and oppression. Such was 

 the period of the advent of this bird in England ; and, coming as a 

 stranger from distant parts, no one knew or cared whence, they 



