LAND BIRDS. 237 
ville and Jenisonville (MS. List, 1904). Mr. Purdy says that at Plymouth, 
Wayne county, he has heard of none since 1888. 
We have a specimen in the Agricultural College Museum, taken in Clinton 
county, a few miles north of the College, in November 1871, and Dr. Atkins 
recorded a specimen seen at Locke, Ingham county, December 20, 1882, 
and again January 17, 1884. Mr. C. J. Davis, of Lansing has in his collec- 
tion a fine gobbler killed near Pine Lake, Ingham county, about December 
18, 1884. This bird weighed 21} pounds and was one of a pair killed at 
the same time and place. Mr. Davis believes these to be the last killed 
in this county. Mr. J. Foster, of Pompeii, informs me that the turkey 
was formerly found in some numbers in Isabella county. He has hunted 
in every part of the Lower Peninsula but has never heard of or seen any 
sign of this species north of that county. Mr. F. H. Chapin, of Kalamazoo, 
writes that in the winter of 1888 he followed a Wild Turkey for some 
distance in Cooper township, Kalamazoo county, but it escaped by flying 
across the river. He also states that in the fall of 1892 or 1893 he was 
informed by reliable parties that there was a small flock in Martin township, 
Allegan county, in a swamp bordering the Gunn River, and on March 6, 
1892, he flushed one in a swamp near Almena, Van Buren county, and saw 
it disappear over the treetops. Farmers in the vicinity informed him that 
there was quite a large flock in the swamp. 
It should be noted that in several parts of the state the domesticated 
turkey has run wild and is by many regarded as the true Wild Turkey. 
Such birds fly nearly as well as wild birds and are almost as hard to shoot. 
They may be readily distinguished, however, by the markings of the tail- 
feathers and the upper tail-coverts, which are always white-tipped in the 
domesticated form and chestnut in the wild bird. 
The turkey nests on the ground, laying ten to eighteen eggs, which are 
light buff, thickly speckled or sprinkled with brown, and averaging 2.55 
by 1.79 inches. We have a single egg in the College Museum, numbered 
4977, and collected by William Kedzie, in Lansing township but the date 
is not known. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult male: ~ Head, with its bristly bare skin, fleshy appendage, wattles, etc. red, 
blue and white, as in the domestic turkey; a large tuft of coarse black bristles hanging 
from the center of the upper breast; general plumage dark brown, with rich metallic lustre, 
showing burnished bronze, copper, blued steel, or gold, according to the angle at which 
the light strikes it; most of the feathers of the under parts, and especially those of the 
wing-coverts, lower back and rump, tipped with velvet black; upper tail-coverts tipped 
with chestnut; primaries and secondaries slate-colored, barred with white, the white 
bars broadest and most conspicuous on the secondaries; tail brown, narrowly barred 
with black, with a broad subterminal black band and tipped conspicuously with bright 
reddish brown or chestnut. Adultfemale: Similar but much smaller, duller, and browner, 
the metallic reflections largely wanting and no trace of the “beard” on the chest. 
Length of male 48 to 50 inches; wing 21; tail 18.50; weight 16 to 40 pounds. 
Family PHASIANIDAS. Pheasants. 
This is the old-world family to which belong the barnyard fowl, peacock, 
golden and silver pheasants, and nearly a hundred other species. It is 
represented in Michigan only by one or two species recently introduced 
and as yet’doubtfully established. The commonest form is the Ring- 
necked or Japanese Pheasant, but the closely related English Pheasant 
may have been liberated in a few places. 
