The Mexican Turkey 301 



were then great sailors and traders. Soon after 

 the big birds made their first appearance in Eu- 

 rope, attracting great attention in both France 

 and England. An old rhyme says: — 



" Turkeys, carps, hoppes, pinaret and bear, 

 Came into England all in one year." 



This year is said to have been 1524. Hakluyt, 

 writing in 1582, mentions "turkey cocks and 

 hennes " as having been brought from foreign 

 parts " about fifty years past." Why the fowl 

 were called turkeys is unknown, the supposed ori- 

 gin of the name being the old-time belief that the 

 birds came from Turkey. It appears to have 

 been the fashion in those days to say that every 

 imported novelty came from that country. The 

 habit of crediting weird things to Turkey still 

 prevails among certain vendors of tobacco, in cig- 

 arette and other forms. In 1541 the turkey is 

 mentioned in a constitution of Archbishop Cran- 

 mer, by which it was ordered, that of such large 

 fowls as cranes, swans, and turkey-cocks, " there 

 should be but one in a dish." The sergeants- 

 at-law, created in 1555, provided, according to 

 Dugdale, in his Origines Juridicales, for their 

 inauguration dinner, among other delicacies, two 

 turkeys, and four turkey-chicks. These were 

 rated at only four shillings each, while swans and 

 cranes were ten shillings, and capons half-a-crown 



