NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 12f> 



endowed with genius and invincible industry, the rich treasures of natural science, which 

 are now hidden from our view, will be drawn from the darkness which covers them, and 

 exposed to the full view of an admiring world. 



NOTE «. 



It would occupy too much ground to state the various difficulties which perplex the 

 naturalist in this interesting study. The greatest embarrassment exists with respect to 

 the identity of the species, and this proceeds from the application of the names of Euro^ 

 j>ean birds to ours which are entirely distinct ; from the imperfect, indistinct, and general 

 descriptions of ornithologists; from an inattentive observa-tion of the changes which take 

 place from age, from climate, from season and food, and from the great difference which 

 nature has established between the sexes. It has, until lately, been doubted whether 

 the bald eagle and the sea eagle were the same ; and the same difficulty has occurred ill 

 relation to the whippoor-will and the night hawk. This is now considered as settled. 

 The latter are supposed to be distinct species, and the former are the same birds undei- 

 different appearances of plumage. 



An interesting discussion has been had upon this question, whether the turkey is exclu- 

 sively of American origin? Thomas Pennant published, in the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society, a paper to show that the turkey came from America, and Was unknown 

 before the discovery of that continent. Daines Barrington, who has taken the opposite 

 aide of the question, asserts that this fine bird boasts an eastern origin. According to a 

 distich in Baker's Chronicle, turkeys were introduced into England from Spain. Latham, 

 in his Synopsis of Birds, says, that turkeys were brought into England about 1524, and 

 that they unquestionably came originally from America, and are found largest in the 

 northern parts. Bartram, in his travels through the Carolinas and Floridas, represents 

 ° our turkey as a very different species from the meleagris of Asia and Europe ; they are 

 nearly thrice their size and weight; they are taller, and have a much longer neck propor- 

 tionately, and likewise longer legs and stand more erect ; they are also very different in 

 colour; they are all of a dark brown colour, not having a black feather on them ; but the 

 male is exceedingly splendid with changeable colours." MichauXj in his Travels to the 

 westward of the Alleghany Mountains, &c. says, " To the east of the Mississippi, in a 

 space of more than eight hundred leagues, there is only one species of wild turkey. 

 Some weigh thirty-five or forty pounds. The variety of domestic turkeys to which the 



