42 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



words silvestris, merriami, osceola, and intermedia 

 are self-evident and require no definitions. 



Audubon, who gives the breeding range of the 

 wild turkey as extending "from Texas to Mas- 

 sachusetts and Vermont" (Vol. V., p. 56), says 

 of them in his long account: "I have ascertained 

 that some of these valuable birds are still to be 

 found in the states of New York, Massachusetts, 

 Vermont, and Maine. In the winter of 1832-33, 

 I purchased a few fine males in the city of Bos- 

 ton"; and further, "At the time when I removed 

 to Kentucky, rather more than a fourth of a cen- 

 tury ago, turkeys were so abundant that the 

 price of one in the market was not equal to that 

 of a common barn-fowl now. I have seen them 

 offered for the sum of three pence each, the birds 

 weighing from ten to twelve pounds. A first- 

 rate turkey, weighing from twenty-five to thirty 

 pounds avoirdupois, was considered well sold 

 when it brought a quarter of a dollar." 1 



From these remarks we may imagine how 

 plentiful wild turkeys must have been on the 



1 Audubon, J. J. "The Birds of America," Vol. V, pp. 54-55. Even 

 in Audubon's time the wild turkeys were being rapidly exterminated. 

 At this time M. g. silvestris does not occur east of central Pennsylvania. 



