210 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 



of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries^ persisted in 

 considering it as the Meleagris of" the ancients, with 

 the minute descriptions of which, in AtheniKus and 

 other classic authors, it has scarcely any traits in com- 

 mon ; while they failed to recognise in those descrip- 

 tions any resemblance to the Guinea-fowl, coinciding 

 with them even in the most trivial particulars. The 

 French academicians first pointed the attention of natu- 

 ralists to this circumstance, and the justice of their 

 observations is now universally admitted. Daines Bar- 

 rington was the last writer of any note who denied the 

 American origin of the Turkey, and he seems to have 

 been actuated more by a love of paradox than by any 

 conviction of the truth of his theory. Since the publi- 

 cation of his Miscellanies, in 1781, the knowledge that 

 has been obtained of the existence of large flocks of 

 Turkeys, perfectly wild, clothed in their natural plumage, 

 and displaying their native habits, spread over a large 

 portion of North America, together with the certainty 

 of their non-existence in a similar state in any other 

 part of the globe, have been admitted on all hands to 

 be decisive of the question. 



All researches have hitherto failed to discover by 

 whom, or at what precise period, the Turkey was first 

 brought to Europe. It may reasonably be concluded 

 that the Spaniards are entitled to the credit of its 

 introduction, and that it was brought by them from 

 Mexico, where it is known to be indigenous. This 

 conjecture is confirmed by Oviedo, whose Natural His- 

 toiy of the Indies contains the earliest description 

 extant of the bird, and whose acquaintance with the 

 animal productions of the newly discovered countries 

 was surprisingly extensive. He speaks of it as a kind 

 of peacock, found in New Spain, of which numbers had 

 been transported to the islands and the Spanish Main, 



