HONDURAS TURKEY. 177 



The whole of the upper plumage_, together with the neck 

 and part of the breast^ are of an earthy brown : from the 

 lower part of the breast, to the under tail covers, the 

 ground colour is dull w^hite, irregularly varied with 

 brown, and crossed by transverse blackish lines : the 

 eyes are surrounded with a naked red skin, but much 

 narrower and less bright than in the male : the tail is 

 brown, much shorter than in the other sex, and having 

 the lateral feathers mixed with white, and obliquely 

 striped with black. The eggs are from eight to four- 

 teen, and are generally laid in April ; their colour is 

 reddish yellow, varied with white, and sprinkled wath a 

 few small brown spots. The young are hatched in 

 twenty-six days. 



The Honduras Turkey. 



Meleagris ocellata, Cuvier. 



Primary quills white, spotted with black : tail, and the 

 upper covers ornamented with ocellated iridescent 

 spots. 



Meleagris ocellata, Cuv., Mus. Paris. Temminck, PL Col. 112. 

 Plate in Griff. Cuv. by Hamilton Smith.* 



The common wdld turkey of America, the origin of 

 our domestic race, has been so repeatetlly and so fully 

 described, that its introduction here would be altogether 

 superfluous. Not so, how^ever, with the present species, 

 which we believe has never yet been seen alive in 

 Europe, and is even so rare in our museums, that only 

 one specimen, now in that of Paris, is known to exist 

 Of its natural history, we absolutely know nothing 

 more than that it inhabits the woods of Honduras. We 

 can, therefore, merely give a short account of its plumage; 

 chiefly with a view of calling the attention of our coun- 



* We quote this figure as by far the best, and as having been drawn by 

 major H. Smith, from the life, at Honduras, — a fact sufficiently vouched for 

 by the natural ease of the attitude, and the correctness of the details; and 

 yet, strange to say, there is not one word inserted in the text relative to its 

 habits, &c., something of which might have been procured from the ac- 

 complished naturalist, who had drawn it on the spot from a living specimen. 

 N 



