162 CLASS AVES. • 



more difficult to rear than chickens, and before they have 

 attained that age in which they can do without the cares of 

 the mother, they cannot escape the critical changes of consti- 

 tution to which we have alluded. Their sanguine tempera- 

 ment also exposes them to accidents unknown to the common 

 fowls. In fact, when their tubercles swell and grow red, if 

 the weather be variable, many of them succumb under this 

 crisis. But none of them perish when the season is favour- 

 able, and care is taken to fortify them with bread steeped in 

 wine, or a paste, into the composition of which, pepper, fennel, 

 parsley, and hempseed should enter. Bleeding in the axillary 

 vein is sometimes found to recover them in this case. 



In their earliest youth, they are subject to a malady which 

 announces itself- by very debilitating symptoms, and they 

 will perish in a short time, unless proper attention be bestowed 

 upon them. The end of the feathers of the wings and tail of 

 the black turkeys then becomes whitish, the plumage bristles 

 all over the body, and they assume altogether a languishing 

 appearance. On an attentive examination of the feathers of 

 the rump, two or three will be found with their tubes full of 

 blood. Extracting them will soon restore the animal to 

 health and strength. 



Turkeys are liable to many other maladies, of which there 

 are various modes of cure ; but we have already entered far- 

 ther into such details than is consistent Avith a work of this 

 kind. They belong more properly to rural economy, than to 

 natural history. 



The turkey has a crop and a gizzard. The length of the 

 intestinal canal is nearly quadruple the length of the animal, 

 taken from the point of the bill to the extremity of the crup- 

 per. It has two cceca, both directed from back to front, and 

 which, taken together, make more than one-fourth of the 

 intestinal conduit. They originate at the extremity of this 

 canal. 



