THE TURKEY PREHISTORIC 37 



indicated on the fossil bone, having either been 

 broken off or never existed at all. In any event 

 it is not present in the specimen. The general 

 fades of the fossil is quite different from that 

 part of the tarso-metatarsus in an existing wild 

 turkey, and to me it does not seem to have come 

 from the skeleton of the pelvic limb of a mele- 

 agrine fowl at all. It may have belonged to a 

 bird of the galline group, not essentially a tur- 

 key; while on the other hand it may have been 

 from the skeleton of some large wader, not nec- 

 essarily related to either the true herons or storks. 

 Some of the herons, for example, (Ardea) have 

 "the hypotarsus of the tarso-metatarsus three- 

 crested, graduated in size, the outer being the 

 smaller; the tendinal grooves pass between 

 them." 1 As just stated, the hypotarsus of the 

 tarso-metatarsus in Meleagris celer of Marsh is 

 three-crested, and the tendinal grooves pass be- 

 tween them. In M. g. silvestris this process is 

 but two-crested and the median groove passes 

 between them. 



1 Shufeldt, R. W. "Osteological Studies of the Subfamily Ardeinse." 

 Journ. Comp. Med. and Surg., Vol. X, No. 4, Phila., October, 1889, pp. 

 287-317. 



