WILD TURKEY. 253 
being longer and wider; it is covered at base by a naked cere- 
like membrane, in which the nostrils are situated, they being 
half closed by a turgid membrane, and opening downwards ; 
the inferior mandible slightly ascends towards the tip; the 
aperture of the ear is defended by a fascicle of small decom- 
posed feathers ; the tongue is fleshy and entire; the irides are 
dark brown ; the head, which is very small in proportion to 
the body, and half of the neck, are covered by a naked bluish 
skin, on which are a number of red wart-like elevations on the 
superior portion, and whitish ones on the inferior, interspersed 
with a few scattered black, bristly hairs, and small feathers, 
which are still less numerous on the neck; the naked skin ex- 
tends farther downwards on the inferior surface of the neck, 
where it is flaccid and membraneous, forming an undulating 
appendage, on the lower part of which are cavernous elevations, 
or wattles. A wrinkled, fleshy, conic, extensible caruncle, hairy 
and pencillated at tip, arises from the bill at its junction with 
the forehead ; when the bird is quiescent, this process is not 
much more than an inch and a half long; but when he is 
excited by love or rage, it becomes elongated, so as to cover the 
bill entirely, and depend two or three inches below it. The 
neck is of a moderate length and thickness, bearing on its in- 
ferior portion a pendant fascicle of black rigid hairs, about nine 
inches long. The body is thick, somewhat elongated, and 
covered with long truncated feathers; these are divided into 
very light fuliginous down at base, beyond which they are 
dusky; to this dusky portion succeeds a broad, effulgent, me- 
tallic band, changing now to copper colour or bronze gold, 
then to violet or purple, according to the incidents of light ; 
and at tip is a terminal, narrow, velvet black band, which does 
not exist in the feathers of the neck and breast; the lower por- 
tion of the back, and the upper part of the rump, are much 
darker, with less brilliant golden violaceous reflections ; the 
feathers of the inferior part of the rump have several concealed, 
narrow, ferruginous, transverse lines, then a black band before 
the broad metallic space, which is effulgent coppery ; beyond 
