THE TURKEY HISTORIC 69 



become domesticated. In other words, it was 

 the Spaniards who first reduced the bird to a 

 state of domestication, and very soon thereafter 

 it was introduced into England. Spain and Eng- 

 land were the great maritime nations of those 

 times, and this fact will amply account for the 

 early introduction of the bird into the latter 

 country. Singularly enough, however, we have 

 no account of any kind whatever through which 

 we can trace the exact time when this took place. 

 As others have suggested, it is just possible that 

 it may have been Cabot, the explorer of the then 

 recently discovered coasts of America, who first 

 transported wild turkeys into England. Baker 

 quotes the popular rhyme in his Chronicle: 



"Turkeys, carps, hoppes, picarel and beer, 

 Came into England all in one year," 



that is, about 1524, or the 15th of the reign of 

 Henry VIII. 1 



What was said by the German author Heres- 

 bach was translated by a writer on agricultural 



1 Newton states that this assertion "is wholly untrustworthy," as 

 carp, pickerel (and other commodities) both lived in this country 

 (England) long before 1524, "if indeed they were not indigenous to it." 

 (Diet, of Birds, p. 995). 



