L J 3° ] 



appellation, though now it is more commonly called pavo, and 

 the peacock pa von f . 



Again, if turkies were firft introduced from Mexico into Spain, 

 the other parts of Europe muff, have received them from the 

 fame quarter, which would alfo have termed it either the 

 Mexican or Spanifh bird at leaft, } but there is no fynonym in 

 any language of Europe which bears the moft diftant allufion 

 to this circumftance, nor is there any tradition of fuch an intro- 

 duction. On the contrary, we have the authority of Cardinal 

 Perron 5 (a contemporary of Hernandez) that they were in his 

 time drove from Languedoc into Spain in large flocks, " Le 

 " coq d'Inde eft un oifeau qui a peuple merveilleufement ; de Lan- 

 " guedoc ils en menent en Efpagne, comme des moutonsV 



By this paffage, we find that turkies, fo far from being 

 brought from Spain, were fent during the fixteenth century by 

 droves into that country, which is the ftrongefr. proof (amongft 

 many others) that we are indebted to Afia, and perhaps Afia 

 Minor, for this bird, becaufe the French have long had inter- 

 courfe and trade with the Turks, though the Spaniards never 

 have had any communication with them. 



The next citation by which M. BufFon fupports his opinion, 

 is from Sperlingius's Zoologia Phyfica, in the following words : 



have been introduced from Europe, and originally Afia. It is remark- 

 able alfo, that he always meets with turkies and fowls near fome towns, 

 and not in the uninhabited tracts through which he pafTed. Now if 

 turkies were wild in the Mexican empire in 1576, when Hernandez may 

 be fuppofed to have wrote, can it be conceived that they were entirely 

 confined fifty years afterwards to the cultivated parts of the country? 

 See Gage's New Survey of the Weft Indies, London, 1648, p. 23. 75. 



I0 5- I2 5- 



f See the Royal Dictionary of the Caftilian language, Madrid, 1726. 

 i Cardinal Perron died in 1620. 

 h Perroniana, p. 67, 



" ante 



