Ifo. 3.] 



SENNETT ON THE ORNITHOLOGY OF TEXAS. 



427 



her back. Four of the six died within the first two weeks, but the 

 others lived and thrived. A few are domesticated every year at almost 

 every ranch, and they become inconveniently familiar, getting about 

 under foot, jumping upon tables, beds, etc. 



The young from the eggs are thickly covered with down. Upper parts 

 mixed ash, fulvous, and brown, with a black line from the crown to the 

 tail and a black patch on the forehead ; under parts pure white, with the 

 exception of the jugulum, which is fulvous ash, meeting the same colors 

 above. When three or four weeks old, the fulvous ash and white be- 

 come tawny, and the black only shows on the crown and forehead. 



The first of May moulting begins. I secured a large series of eggs 

 and skins. The eggs average 2.30 bj' l.CO; the largest 2.45 by 1.70 and 

 the smallest 2.10 by J. 50. Of the twenty-two skins preserved I only 

 give in the list those measured in the field. 



Lomita 

 ....do . 

 ....do . 

 ....do . 

 ....do . 

 ...do . 

 ....do . 

 .-..do . 



Specimen 1S\0. 371 weighed 1^ pounds. 



MELEAGEIDiE. 



IIG. Meleageis gallop avo L. — Mexican Turl-ey. 



At Lomita this bird is common. On the night of the ICth of April 

 we must have flushed fifty from their roosts in tall elm-, ash-, and hack- 

 berry-trees. By day we occasionally came upon them feeding. My 

 assistant, Mr. Sanford, secured four out of a flock of seven or eight that 

 he came across, while feeding, in broad daylight. Their principal food 

 was at this time the wild-tomato, which attains about the size of a cran- 

 berry, and Avhich they devoured whole, together with insects and larvae. 

 At the time of our arrival most of them were in worn plumage, and 

 moulting began by the 1st of May. 



From such observations as I could make during my trip to the Eio 

 Grande in 1877, I believed the form of Meleagris belonging to that 

 region to be the true f/allopavo, formerly called mexieana. Dr. J. C. 

 Merrill, in his notes of Southern Texas, 1876 to 1878, page 150, says: 

 "Birds taken here (Lower Eio Grande) present the characters of rar. 

 Mexieana well developed." On this trip (1878) I had abundant oppor- 

 tunity to study the Turkey, and brought home two fine skins of males 

 which weighed in the flesh over twenty pounds each, besides the tails 

 and tail-coverts of two others. One of the birds is now in the National 

 Museum, and has tawny tips to coverts and tail, being as dark a speci- 

 men as any found on the Lower Eio Grande. 

 Bull. V, 3 7 



