An Old Acquaintance. 241 
the period of the Spanish Conquest, and of its subsequent 
introduction into Europe, either from New Spain, or from 
the West India Islands, into which it had been previously 
carried. 
Audubon, one of the early pioneers of American orni- 
thology, supposed our common barnyard Turkey to have 
originated in the wild bird so prevalent in the eastern half of 
: Ge 
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Ry 
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He 
MEXICAN WILD TURKEY. 
Ancestor of the Domestic Bird. 
our great country. But it has always been a matter of sur- 
prise to naturalists that the latter did not assimilate, by inter- 
breeding and reversion, more intimately in color and habits 
to the domestic form. No suspicion, until recently, appears 
to have been entertained that the two birds might belong to 
different species. That such is the true status of things, 
there is now no reasonable doubt. 
