﻿6]B TURKEY. 



** The hen begins to lay early in the fpring, and will often pro- 

 duce a great number of eggs, which are white, marked with 

 reddifh or yellow fpots, or rather freckles. She fits well;, and is 

 careful of her young, of which, in this climate, fhe will often 

 have from fourteen to feventeen for one brood, but fcarce ever 

 fits more than once in a feafon*, except allured thereto by put- 

 ting frefh eggs under her as foon as the firft fet are hatched ; for 

 as fhe is a clofe fitter, will willingly remain two months on the 

 neft; though this conduct, as may be fuppofed, is faid greatly 

 to injure the bird. 



Turkies are bred in quantities in fome of the northern counties 

 of England, and are driven up to London towards autumn for fale, 

 in flocks of feveral hundreds ; which are collected from the fe- 

 veral cottages about Norfolk, Suffolk, and neighbouring counties, 

 the inhabitants of which think it well worth their while to attend 

 carefully to them, by making thefe birds a part of their family, 

 during the breeding- feafon. It is pleafing to fee with what faci- 

 lity the drivers manage them, by means of a bit of red rag 

 fattened to the end of a flick 5 which, from their antipathy to it as 

 a colour, a£ts to the fame effect as a fcourge to a quadruped. It 

 is needlefs to fay further of the general manners than the above ; 

 whoever may be defirous of perming more, may be fully fatisfied 

 with that of Mr. Pennant in the Phil. Tranf. : but if he wifhes 

 a longer detail, the account at large in the Hijl. des oif. may be 

 with propriety recommended. 



* Said to have three broods in a year in the Weft Indies. 



Meleagris 



