136 THE TURKEY. 



a stranger, in the same way as we apply the term 

 " Groth" to men rude and barbarous in their habits, or 

 the term " Turk," to persons of a savage and tyranieal 

 disposition ; words often become perverted from their 

 original signification and merge into nicknames ex- 

 pressive of supposed qualities or conditions of things. 

 About the time when this bird appears first to have 

 been known in England, "the Turkish power was held 

 in dread in Europe. The sultan, Suliman, the Great, 

 reigned from 1520 to 1566 ; his fleet was then the 

 first in the world, and the scourge of the Mediterra- 

 nean ; his ships ravaged the coasts of Italy and Spain, 

 and his armies laid waste the territories of Hungary 

 and some adjacent parts of G-ermany, and the dread of 

 the Turks was universal over Europe. It might have 

 been that the outlandish aspect of this bird, its deep gut- 

 teral notes, its haughty carriage, and irascible disposi- 

 tion, led to the imposition of the name. But, whatever 

 gave rise to this appellation, certain it is that the pres- 

 ent species was the subject of much confusion and 

 doubt among the earlier modern ornithologists, whose 

 learned discussions tended to perplex rather than clear 

 up any points of difficulty. John "Walcott, a writer 

 on British birds, in 1789, says, " The turkey was first 

 brought to England about the year 1521," but he 

 gives no authority. It is certain that in the reign of 

 Henry VIII. the turkey was pretty general in Eng- 

 land. Yarrell, in his " British Fishes," quotes an old 

 couplet which runs thus : 



" Turkeys, carpa, hops, pickerell, and beer, 

 Came into England all in one year.' ' 



"The old couplet," adds he, "is certainly errone- 

 ous ; pike, or pickerell, were the subjects of legal reg- 

 ulations in the time of Edward the First. Carp are 

 mentioned in the Boke of St. Allbans, printed in 

 1469. Turkeys and hops were unknown till 1524, 

 previous to which wormwood and other bitter plants 

 were used to preserve beer ; and the parliament, in 



