92 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



set is sometimes heavily covered with both spots 

 and blotches of the size of buckshot, and even 

 larger. The majority of eggs of this species in 

 the U. S. National Museum collection, and such 

 as I have examined elsewhere, resemble in color- 

 ation the figured type of M. gallopavo mexicanus, 

 but average, as a rule, somewhat smaller in size. 



"The average measurement of thirty-eight 

 eggs in the U. S. National Museum collection is 

 61.5 by 46.5 millimetres. The largest egg meas- 

 ures 68.5 by 46, the smallest 59 by 45 milli- 

 metres." 



At the close of his account of M. g. mexicanus 

 Bendire states that "The only eggs of this 

 species in the U. S. National Museum collection, 

 about whose identity there can be no possible 

 doubt, were collected on Upper Lynx Creek, 

 Arizona, in the spring of 1870, by Dr. E. Palmer, 

 whose name is well known as one of the pioneer 

 naturalists of that Territory. 



"The eggs are ovate in shape, their ground 

 color is creamy white, and they are profusely 

 dotted with fine spots of reddish brown, pretty 

 evenly distributed over the entire egg. The 



