56 
BULLETIN OF THE NUTTALL 
They daunce by the doore so well .... I had a Salvage who hath 
taken out his boy in a mornings and they have brought home their 
loades about noone. I have asked them what number they found 
in the woods, who have answered Neent Metawna, which is a tho- 
sand that day ; the plenty of them is such in those parts. They 
are easily killed at rooste, because the one being killed, the other 
sit fast neverthelesse, and this is no bad commodity.” * According 
to John Josselyn, they began early to decline. This author, writ- 
ing in 1672, says: “I have also seen three score broods of young 
Turkies on the side of a Marsh, sunning of themselves in a morning 
betimes, but this was thirty years since, the English and the In- 
dians having now destroyed the breed, so that ’t is very rare to 
meet with a wild Turkie in the Woods ; but some of the English 
bring up great store of the wild kind, which remain about their 
Houses as tame as ours in England.” t This would seem to indi- 
cate that the Wild Turkey was often domesticated in Massachusetts, 
and renders it probable that our domestic stock was by no means 
wholly derived, as is commonly supposed, from Mexico. Besides 
Josselyn’s statement of their domestication in New England, I have 
met with other statements to the same effect, and can cite numer- 
ous instances of its domestication in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and 
Virginia early in the seventeenth century. J 
Under the name of “ Pheasants,” Morton and others make un- 
questionable reference to the Pinnated Grouse {Giipidonia cupido), 
showing that it was once a common denizen of this State. A few 
pairs are still known to exist on the islands of Naushon and Mar- 
tha’s Vineyard, where they have of late been stringently protected 
by law. 
The Wild Pigeon [Ectopistes migratoria), though by no means 
yet extirpated from the State, has greatly decreased here in num- 
bers during the present generation, and has not been seen within 
the present century in nearly so great abundance as in earlier 
times. Space will allow of reference to but few of the many ac- 
counts of its former almost incredible numbers. Morton refers to 
the presence of “ Millions of Turtle doves on the greene boughes ; 
which sate pecking of the ripe pleasant grapes, that were supported 
* New English. Canaan, pp. 69, 70. 
t New Englands Rarities, p. 9. 
X On the domesticahility of the Wild Turkey of the United States, see Bull. 
Mus. Comp. ZooL, Vol. II, pp. 343-352. 
I 
