252 WILD TURKEY. 
are often employed as decoy birds to those in a state of nature. 
Mr William Bloom, of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, caught five 
or six wild turkeys, when quite chickens, and succeeded in - 
rearing them. Although sufficiently tame to feed with his 
taine turkeys, and generally associate with them, yet they 
always retained some of their original propensities, roosting by 
themselves, and higher than the tame birds, generally on the 
top of some tree, or of the house. They were also more 
readily alarmed ; on the approach of a dog, they would fly off, 
and seek safety in the nearest woods. On an occasion of this 
kind, one of them flew across the Susquehanna, and the owner 
was apprehensive of losing it; in order to recover it, he sent 
a boy with a tame turkey, which was released at the place 
where the fugitive had alighted. This plan was successful ; 
they soon joined company, and the tame bird induced his 
companion to return home. Mr Bloom remarked, that the 
wild turkey will thrive more, and keep in better condition, 
than the tame, on the same quantity of food. 
Besides the above-mentioned half-breed, some domesticated 
turkeys, of a very superior metallic tint, are sold in the Phila- 
delphia and New York markets as wild ones. Many of these 
require a practised eye to distinguish their true character, but 
they are always rather less brilliant, and those I examined had 
a broad whitish band at the tip of the tail-coverts, and another 
at the tip of the tail itself, which instantly betrayed their 
origin, the wild ones being entirely destitute of the former, and 
the band on the tip of the tail being neither so wide nor so 
pure. 
In the following description, we give the generic as well as 
the specific characters of the wild turkey, in order to make it 
complete. 
The male wild turkey, when full grown, is nearly four feet 
in length, and more than five in extent. The bill is short and 
robust, measuring two inches and a half to the corner of the 
mouth; it is reddish, and horn colour at tip; the superior man- 
dible is vaulted, declining at tip, and overhangs the inferior, 
