J2 Mr. pennant’s Account 
Wild Turkies are now grown moft exceffively 
rare in the inhabited parts of America , and are 
only found in numbers in the diftant and moft 
unfrequented fpots. 
The Indians make a moft elegant cloathing of 
the feathers. They twift the inner webs into a 
ftrong double thread of hemp, or inner bark of 
the mulberry tree, and work it like matting ; it 
appears very rich and glofly, and as fine as a filk 
fhag*. They alfo make fans of the tail ; and 
the French of Loui/iana were wont to make um- 
brellas by the junction of four of the tails t* 
When difturbed, they do not take wing, but 
run out of fight. It is ufual to chafe them with 
dogs, when they will fly and perch on the next tree. 
They are fo ftupid or fo infenfible of danger, as not 
to fly on being (hot at ; but the furvivors remain 
unmoved at the death of their companions J. 
Place* Turkies are natives only of America , or the 
New World, and of courfe unknown to the 
ancients. Since both thele pofitions have been 
denied by fome of the moft eminent naturalifts 
of the fixteenth century, I beg leave to lay open, 
in as few words as poffible, the caufe of their 
error. 
Miftaken belon §, the earlieft of thofe writers who are 
by belon. of opinion that thefe birds were natives of the 
* LAWSON, l8. ADAIR, 423. 
t DU PRATZ, II. S3, 
J DU PRATZ, 224. 
§ Hilt, des Oys. 248. 
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