Chap. VIII. 



TURKEY. 293 



turkeys differed from having different proportions of the blood 

 of the two parent-forms. 



English turkeys are smaller than either wild form. They 

 have not varied in any great degree ; but there are some breeds 

 which can be distinguished— as Norfolks, Suffolks, Whites, and 

 Gopper-coloured (or Cambridge), all of which, if precluded from 

 crossing with other breeds, propagate their kind truly. Of these 

 kinds, the most distinct is the small, hardy, dull-black Nor- 

 folk turkey, of which the chickens are black, with occasionally 

 white patches about the head. The other breeds scarcely 

 differ except in colour, and their chickens are generally mottled 

 all over with brownish-grey. 38 The tuft of hair on the breast, 

 which is proper to the male alone, occasionally appears on the 

 breast of the domesticated female. 39 The inferior tail-coverts 

 vary in number, and according to a German superstition the 

 hen lays as many eggs as the cock has feathers of this kind. 40 

 In Holland there was formerly, according to Temminck, a 

 beautiful buff-yellow breed, furnished with an ample white top- 

 knot. Mr. Wilmot has described 41 fa white turkey-cock with a 

 crest formed of " feathers about four inches long, with bare 

 quills, and a tuft of soft white down growing at the end." Many 

 of the young birds whilst young inherited this kind of crest, but 

 afterwards it either fell off or was pecked out by the other birds. 

 This is an interesting case, as with care a new breed might 

 probably have been formed ; and a topknot of this nature would 

 have been to a certain] extent analogous to that borne by the 

 males in several allied genera, such as Euplocomus, Lophophorus, 

 and Pavo. 



Wild turkeys, believed in every instance to have been im- 

 ported from the United States, have been kept in the parks of 

 Lords Powis, Leicester, Hill, and Derby. The Eev. W T . D. Fox 

 procured birds from the two first-named parks, and he informs 

 me that they certainly differed a little from each other in the 

 shape of their bodies and in the barred plumage on their wings. 

 These birds likewise differed from Lord Hill's stock. Some of 

 the latter kept at Oulton by Sir P. Egerton, though precluded 



ss « Ornamental Poultry,' by the Rev. 40 Bechstein, ' Naturgesch. Deutsch- 



JE. S. Dixon, 1848, p. 34. lands,' B. iii., 1793, s. 309. 



39 Rev. E. S. Dixon, id., p. 35. « ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1852, p. 699. 



