218 WILD TURKEY. 



flock, and kill them in preference to the others. The female Wild 

 Turkey is more frequently furnished with the hairy tuft than the Tame 

 one, and this appendage is gained earlier in life. The great number of 

 young hens without it, has no doubt given rise to the incorrect assertion 

 of a few writers, that the female is always destitute of it. 



The weight of the hen generally averages about nine pounds avoirdu- 

 pois. Mr. Audubon has shot barren hens, in strawberry time, weighing 

 thirteen pounds ; and he has seen some few so fat as to burst open by 

 falling from a tree, after being shot. The male Turkeys differ more in 

 bulk and weight : from the accounts I have received from various parts 

 of the Union, fifteen or twenty pounds may be considered a fair state- 

 ment of their medium weight ; but birds of thirty pounds are not very 

 rare ; and I have ascertained the existence of some weighing forty. In 

 relation to those surpassing the last-mentioned weight, according to the 

 report of authors who do not speak from personal observation, I have 

 not been able to find any, and am inclined to consider them as fabulous. 

 Mr. Audubon informs us, he saw one in the Louisville market that 

 weighed thirty-six pounds ; the pectoral appendage of this bird mea- 

 sured more than a foot in length. Bartram describes a specimen of 

 remarkable size and beauty, reared from an egg found in the forest, and 

 hatched by a common hen : when this Turkey stood erect, the head was 

 three feet from the ground. The animal was stately and handsome, and 

 did not seem insensible of the admiration he excited. 



Our plate, which is the first that has been given of the Wild Turkey, 

 represents both sexes, reduced to one-third of their natural size ; the 

 male was selected from among many fine specimens, shot in the month 

 of April, near Engineer Cantonment, on the Missouri. It weighed 

 twenty-two pounds ; but, as the males are very thin at that season,* 

 when in good order it must have weighed much more. 



Though comparatively recent, the domestic state of the Turkey has 

 been productive of many varieties ; we need not, therefore, be surprised 

 at the existence of numerous and remarkable differences in those ani- 

 mals which have been domesticated from time immemorial. The most 

 striking aberration from the standard of the species, is certainly the 

 tufted Turkey, which is very rare, the crest being white in some speci- 

 mens, and black in others. Tame Turkeys sometimes occur of an im- 

 maculate black color ; others are exclusively white ; some are speckled 

 or variegated ; and all these varieties are continued by propagation, 

 under analogous circumstances. In the wild state, a white, or even a 



* The extraordinary leanness of this bird, at particular seasons of the year, has 

 become proverbial in many Indian languages. An Omawhaw, who wishes to make 

 known his abject poverty, says, " Wah pawne zezecah ha go ha ;" " I am as poor as 

 a Turkey in summer." 



