60 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



Cheese, Apples and Nuts, jolie 



carols to heare, 

 As then in the countrie, is counted 

 good cheare." 



"But at this very time they were so rare in 

 France, that we are told, that the very first which 

 was eaten in that Kingdom appeared at the 

 nuptial feast of Charles IX. in 1570 (Anderson's 

 Diet. Com. 1, 410)." 1 



A little later on Bartram in his travels in the 

 South published some notes on the wild turkey 

 [now M. g. osceola] as he found them in Florida 

 during the latter part of the eighteenth century. 

 The original edition of his book, which I have not 

 seen, appeared in 1791. I have, however, ex- 

 amined the edition of 1793, wherein on page 14 

 he says: "Our turkey of America is a very 

 different species from the Meleagris of Asia 



Pennant's article is illustrated by a folding plate giving the leg of a 

 turkey bearing a supernumery toe situated in front of the tibiotarsus 

 with the claw above. The note in reference to it is here reproduced in 

 order to complete the article. Philos. Trans., Vol. LXXI, Ab. Ill, 

 p. 80: 



" To this account I beg leave to lay before you the very extraordinary 

 appearance on the thigh of a turkey bred in my poultry yard, and which 

 was killed a few years ago for the table. The servant in plucking it was 

 very unexpectedly wounded in the hand. On examination the cause 

 appeared so singular that the bird was brought to me. 1 discovered 

 that from the thigh-bone issued a short upright process, and to that grew 

 a large and strong toe, with a sharp and crooked claw, exactly resembling 

 that of a rapacious bird." 



