266 
THE POULTKY BOOK. 
The best Game bird of America, and, at the same time, the largest and the 
wildest, is the wild Turkey {Meleagris Americana). There are four distinct species 
of turkeys known. The first is the American bird, once abundant throughout the 
Atlantic States, but now rarely found east of the Mississippi, except in the 
Southern States. In Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, there are yet 
a great many left, and probably they will find security in the tangled forests and 
canebrakes of those states, for many years to come ; but west of the Mississippi, 
in Arkansas and Texas, they are, except here and there, as plentiful as they 
ever were. The second is the Mexican, M. Mexicana ; it is found upon the 
high table lands of Mexico, and throughout the Eocky Mountain district. It is 
reported to differ materially from the first in many points ; but as I have never 
seen the bird, I can personally give no opinion. The third — the Ocellated Turkey, 
M. Ocellata, of Central America — has the plumage of his neck, breast, and body 
almost as gaudy as a peacock’s tail : its fine metallic tints flash with green, with 
purple, and gold in the sunshine. The fourth and last is the tame species M. 
Gallopavo ; and most likely this — as is supposed to be the case with nearly all 
our domesticated animals — has been tame for ages. Doubtless the original of 
domestic cattle, sheep, horses, camels, pigs, fowls, ducks, and, in all probability, 
turkeys, have existed tame as long as domestic man ; and if, as has been stated, 
the Spaniards found a tame breed of turkeys possessed by the inhabitants both in 
Mexico and the West Indian Islands, it would go fa£to prove that the domestic 
turkey is a distinct species ; for though thousands of wild turkeys have been 
hatched under barn-door fowls, they have invariably strayed off the following 
spring to their wild kindred in the forests, with whom they have remained, and ail 
attempts to retain the wild turkey as a barn-yard fowl have completely failed. 
The wild turkey cock is never seen fairly but in the forest. The war-horse, 
described by Job, and the sorriest hack on Hampstead-heath, when his Sunday 
troubles are over, would present scarcely a greater contrast than does the wild bird 
to the tame ; nothing alive shov/s more points of health and purity of blood than 
does this fine bird. His clean game head is fully four feet from the ground, and 
his bright hazel eyes are full of intelligence and suspicion, so different from the 
dull expression of the tame bird. His great breadth of shoulder, deep chest, and 
clean, firm step, must strike the most superficial observer. The general tints of 
the ‘ gobbler ’ — for he is a far handsomer bird than the hen, and generally twice 
the latter’s size — are purple, and a deep, rich brown, with various shades of gold 
and violet colours gleaming upon his close-lying plumage, as the sunlight plays 
upon their surface. The head and neck, where bare of feathers, are of a darker 
blue than in the tame variety, whilst the tuft, resembling horse hair, which hangs 
from the breast, often measures, in full-grown males, nearly a foot. I have one 
by me which measures eleven inches ; the turkey upon which it grew, and which 
I killed, weighed thirty pounds. I have heard of others weighing greater weights 
than this, and some are even stated to have reached forty pounds ; but I have 
never seen them, though I do not dispute that such have been killed. 
