328 The Wild Turkey and its Domestication. [June, 
nia, in the hope that it may be acclimatized in the forests. Their 
numerous enemies have thus far prevented success in this direc- 
tion, but they have done reasonably well in domestication, and 
Captain Rodgers, of the United States Coast Survey, has met 
with remarkable success in hybridizing them with the domestic 
bronze turkey. Last spring I sent some which were placed on 
Santa Clara Island, off Santa Barbara. They remained content- 
edly about the ranch building and, as I am informed, raised three 
broods of young which are doing well. As there is nothing on 
the island more dangerous to them than a very small species of 
fox, we may well hope that they will in a few years stock the 
whole island, which is many miles in extent. As the island is 
uninhabited except by the shepherds who tend the immense flocks 
of sheep there, they will soon revert to the wild state, when I 
have no doubt they will resume markings as constant as is ob- 
served in the wild bird here, but I shall be disappointed if the 
changed condition of life does not produce a change of color or in 
the shades of color, which would induce one unacquainted with 
their history to pronounce them specifically different from their 
wild ancestors here. Results will be watched with interest. 
My experiments in crossing the wild with the tame have been 
eminently successful. These have been conducted at my farm in 
the country. I first sent up a cock and turned him out with a 
few domestic hens. They all raised good broods. The hybrids 
grew larger than either parent. The next year the hybrid hens, 
as the breeding time approached, manifested the wild disposition 
of their wild ancestor, but they had an artificial grove of ten acres 
a little distance from the buildings, which was set with a thick 
undergrowth, and here they nested. When they brought off 
the young broods, instead of keeping about the barns as-their 
tame mothers did, they wandered off through the fields where 
they found an abundance of insects. There was no forest nearer 
than two miles, so I think none of them found their way to that. 
Some of them returned to the grove to roost at night, while others 
remained away. Pains were taken when they were met with in 
the fields to drive them to the barn and feed them with corn. 
This rarely had to be repeated, for they would come up them- 
selves for their suppers. Some wandered away and never re- 
turned, but were afterwards recognized about the yards of neigh- 
bors perhaps miles away; in subsequent years they were much 
more easily kept in hand and probably few were lost, till now 
after seven years there is little trouble to keep them about the 
