THE TURKEY HISTORIC 85 



sion always observed between animals of different 

 species of the same genus, and that the hybrid 

 progeny is as vigorous, as robust, and fertile as 

 was either parent. 



"It must be already apparent that I, at least, 

 have no doubt that our common domestic turkey 

 is a direct descendant of the wild turkey of our 

 forests, and that therefore there is no specific dif- 

 ference between them. If such marked changes 

 in the wild turkey occur by only ten years 

 of domestication, all directly tending to the 

 form, habits, and colorings of the domestic 

 turkey, — in all things which distinguish the do- 

 mestic from the wild turkey, — what might we 

 not expect from fifty or a hundred years of do- 

 mestication? I know that the best ornitho- 

 logical authority at the present time declares 

 them to be of a different species, but I submit 

 that this is a question which should be recon- 

 sidered in the light of indisputable facts which 

 were not admitted or established at the time such 

 decision was made. 



"There has always been diffused among the 

 domestic turkeys of the frontiers more or less of 



