THE WILD TURKEY. 11 
Barnaby Googe, a writer on husbandry, says, in 1614, 
that ‘those outlandish birds called ginny cocks and 
turkey cocks,” were not known in England previous to 
the year 1530, but he, evidently, derived his statement 
from the German author Heresbach, who was one of the 
prominent writers on the history and habits of the bird. 
The earliest European mention of the turkey was 
made by Oviedo in his summary of the history of the 
West Indies, which was written in 1525, for the Em- 
peror Charles V, of Spain. In his time the domestic 
bird was very common in the West Indies, as well as 
on the mainland, it having been introduced into the 
islands by the Spaniards, who found it abundant in 
Mexico, when that country was discovered by Grijalvo, 
in 1518. Daines Barrington, in his essay ‘‘ Whether the 
turkey was known before the discovery of America,”’ as- 
sumed that it was not known in Mexico, but acknowledged 
that it was a resident of Virginia when that region was first 
explored by the whites. In contradistinction to his 
statement, however, we learn that Montezuma had one 
of the finest zodlogical gardens in the world, long before 
the Spaniards visited his country, and that the wild beasts 
were fed daily with turkeys—a proof that they must have 
been very abundant. 
Oviedo calls those found in the West Indies, peacocks; 
but that they were not peacocks is evident from a part 
of his description of them which is given in Purchas’s 
“¢ Pilgrims,” for this author says: ‘‘The neck is bare of 
feathers, but covered with a skin, which they change 
after their phantasie into divers colors. They have a 
horn, as it were, in front, and haires on their breast.” 
René de Laudonniére, the protege of Admiral Coligny, 
found them numerous in South Carolina, in 1564, but 
the domestic species had found their way into Spain sev- 
eral years before that time. They are supposed to have 
reached England between the years 1524 and 1541, for, 
