ORIGIN OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 237 
between the arctic circle and the tropics. He is a truly cosmo- 
politan bird, and it is not strange that many varieties and sub- 
species should have developed as the result of his widespread 
range and varied environment. Domestication of the duck is easy 
and has undoubtedly been accomplished many times. More than 
one hen has hatched a brood of wild duck’s eggs, after which a 
timely clipping of the wings insured a flock of tame ducks. 
The turkey. Here at last we come to a truly American bird, 
more fitting by far than the eagle to stand as the emblem 
of America. 
When our Puritan ancestors landed on the forbidding shores 
of New England, they found the woods alive with a strange 
wild bird, wary and fleet both of foot and wing, but most ex- 
cellent eating and easily tamed. 
This native of the New World not only helped out in the 
“terrible winters,’ when food was scarce with the colonists, but 
he remained in domestication to grace the tables of comfort, 
and to-day the Thanksgiving turkey is everywhere the symbol 
cf plenty. 
Of the four contributions of the New World to domesticated 
species, namely corn, tobacco, the potato, and the turkey, the 
latter is the only animal, and he clearly outranks any other food 
bird that has ever been domesticated. Of this contribution to our 
civilization America may well be proud, especially as no similar 
species has ever been discovered elsewhere on earth, save only 
the related brush turkey of Australia and the outlying islands. 
The American turkey exists wild in no less than three distinct 
species: Afeleagris americana, the parent of the black turkey 
of the eastern United States ; J/eleagris gallopavo, of northern 
Mexico, parent of the bronze strains ; and the beautiful 1/c/ca- 
gris ocellata of Guatemala, Yucatan, and British Honduras, 
described as radiant, with its '' greenish-blue eyespot shot with 
purple, while the metallic parts of the body feathers are golden 
or bronze green and the naked head and neck blue, covered 
with red warts,” 
