THE WILD TURKEY. 129 



assign it to the Old World instead of the New, apparently 

 from a confusion of the East Indies with the West. 



There is, I think, in short, no doubt whatever that 

 long before the landing of the Spaniards in Mexico, the 

 natives, who are to this day in the habit of trapping the 

 bird alive in great numbers, had been accustomed to 

 bring them for sale from the interior to the coast, and 

 that the name pavon de las Indias was ignorantly be- 

 stowed on them by the sailors or soldiers to whom they 

 were offered for sale; much in the same careless manner 

 in which our own equally inapplicable designation was 

 bestowed not long afterwards. 



The most apparent and easily observed differences 

 between the wild and the farmyard bird are the 

 presence in the latter of a fleshy dewlap, extending from 

 the under mandible to the neck; the bare wrinkled 

 skin of its head and neck is much less blue, and is 

 sprinkled with a smaller number of hairs; and the tip 

 of its tail and the edges of the tail-coverts are gene- 

 rally white or whitish, but never so in the one of 

 which we are treating. There is said to be a variety 

 peculiar to Mexico, in which the white does appear 

 at these particular points. 



The care and attention of man have not in this in- 

 stance improved the breed, for the fostered descendants 

 are less hardy, and also inferior in plumage and form to 



K 



