I M 2 ] 



To apply this general obfervation to the inftance of the turkey, 



Mexico is not only lituated within the tropicks, but the con- 

 tinent in that part being narrow between the two feas, I mould 

 fuppofe that the climate mufr. be nearly the fame with that of 

 Jamaica, where Brown informs us " that turkies require a good 

 " deal of care,, and a moderate climate when young s", which feems 

 to imply neglect commonly in the mother bird. On the other 

 hand, turkies are very attentive to their parental duties in all 

 the more moderate climates of Europe, which circumftance affords 

 fome prefumption that we derive this bird originally from the 

 Northern parts of Indoftan, which are not only out of the Tropic,, 

 but being inland have often very considerable degrees of cold. 



I therefore conceive, that if Gyllius fpeaks of America by the 

 term of Novus Orb;s, he was impofed upon by thofe who mewed 

 him. thefe then extraordinary birds, as we know well how every 

 one's curiofity muft have been raifed with regard to the pro- 

 ductions of that lately difcovered quarter of the globe- To this 

 it may be added, that Belon, who writes expreisiy on jirds 

 (and therefore deferves much more credit on the point in contro- 

 verfy) fo far from imagining that turkies came from America, 

 gives us his opinion, that they were known to the ancients. Now 

 Belon was a Frenchman as well as Gyllius, and only publiihed 

 his Ornithology in 1555, or twenty years after Gyllius's work. 



I have thus ftated, for the decifions of others, this new au- 

 thority on the fide of America, together with the circumftances 

 which may invalidate it : if, upon the whole, my arguments 

 fhould not be deemed irrefragable againft the turkey's being 

 found indigenous in Mexico, yet 1 flatter myfelf that I have 

 fully proved that this bird was not peculiar to America, as 

 M. BurTon hath contended. 



e Hiftory of Jamaica, p. 470. See alfo ante, p. 129, where there is 

 a citation from Du Tertre to the fame import. 



4 Having 



