86 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



the blood of the wild turkey of the neighboring 

 forests, and as the wild turkey has been driven 

 back by the settlement of the country, the do- 

 mestic turkey has gradually lost the markings 

 which told of the presence of the wild; though 

 judicious breeding has preserved and rendered 

 more or less constant some of this evidence in 

 what is called the domestic bronze turkey, as the 

 red leg and the tawny shade dashed upon the 

 white terminals of the tail feathers and the tail- 

 coverts, the better should the stock be considered, 

 because it is the more like its wild ancestor. 



"That the domestic turkey in its neighborhood 

 may be descended from or largely interbred with 

 the wild turkey of New Mexico, which in its wild 

 state more resembles the common domestic tur- 

 key than our wild turkey does, may unquestion- 

 ably be true, and it may be also that the wild 

 turkey there has a large infusion of the tame 

 blood, for it is known that not only our domes- 

 tic turkey, but even our barnyard fowls, relapse 

 to the wild state in a single generation when 

 they are reared in the woods and entirely away 

 from the influence of man, gradually assuming 



