152 



[Assembly 



y^^e^.iS'jSsuri:, 



AMERICAN WILD TURKEV. 

 (Communicated by Sam"l Van AYyck, Esq.) 



To give a correct, intelligible history of the American domes- 

 tic turkey, we must give a pretty minute account of the wild 

 turkey of America, from which our tame ones all originally 

 sprung. The wild turkey is a bird peculiar to America, this the 

 best ornithologists admit. It is of the genus or family gallmaciej 

 and of the order or species maleagris gallopavo. The native 

 country of the wild turkey extends from the north western part 

 of the United States, to the Isthmus of Panama, south of which 

 it is not to be found, notwithstanding the statements of some 

 authors and travellers who have mistaken another bird for it, and 

 that possibly somewhat resembled it. In Canada, and the more 

 densely peopled parts of the United States, wild turkeys were 

 formerly very abundant ; but like the Indian and Buffalo, they 

 have been compelled by the destructive energy of the white set- 

 tlers, and perhaps sometimes wantonly exercised, to seek refuge 

 in the remotest parts of the interior. Civilization too, is more 

 hostile to most barbarous nations and all wild animals; they with- 

 draw from it, with almost as much precipitation and terror, as 

 from the assaults of an open active enemy ; although more gradual 



