104 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
sidered to mean the turkey, and there was nothing improbable 
in that supposition, for the name might have been bestowed 
in allusion to the hairy or bristly tuft which depends from 
its breast. That it was the Turkey was the view taken by 
that distinguished Scottish etymologist, Dr. Jamieson.* But 
this is a theory which on consideration cannot be upheld: 
the name Brissel is not to be accepted as meaning a Turkey, 
and this is partly because, as Professor Newton has pointed 
out, there is every reason for believing that no Turkeys had 
been brought to Britain at so early a date as 1529. The 
bird was not even described until after that. 
What Newton considers to be the earliest description 
of the Turkey is found in the “ Historia de las Indias” of 
Oviedo (1535), where there is a rather imaginative relation of 
a sort of Peacock with a bare neck, the skin of which changes 
into divers colours. It was reported also to have a horn on 
its forehead, and hairs upon its breast, no doubt in allusion to 
the pendulous bristles which are characteristic of these birds. 
On his return from Hayti, Oviedo had published the result 
of numerous enquiries into General and Natural History, 
and into the resources of the New World, then opening out 
enormous possibilities to merchants and mariners. That 
such a birdas the Turkey should excite great wonder was 
to be expected, and its introduction into Spain desired. In 
these reports he speaks of the Turkey as having been 
brought from Mexico, but that did not deter Barrington 
from erroneously, though with no small ability, maintaining 
in a skilful essay (‘‘ Miscellanies,’’ 1781) that it was Asiatic. 
In this he was at issue with Count Buffon, who, some ten 
years before, had published the contrary, and we now know 
that Buffon was correct. and that John Rayt and other 
early naturalists were wrong. 
In his “‘ Whole Art and Trade of Husbandry” (1614), 
the poet Barnabe Googe says that no Turkeys were sven in 
England before 1530, but there is no documentary evidence 
of their being here even then. It was not until eleven years 
later that some directions laid down by Archbishop Cranmer 
* See ‘Dictionary Scottish Language,” 1808 and Suppl., 1825. 
t “ Ornithology,” p. 160. 
