PAVONINiE. MELEAGRIS. 
197 
fourteen or eighteen very broad, broadly rounded feathers. 
□Esophagus dilated into a very large crop ; stomach trans- 
versely elliptical, extremely muscular ; intestines long and 
wide ; coeca very large, oblong. 
290. 1. Meleagris Gallopavo, Linn. Common Turkey. 
Plate I. Male. Plate VI. Female and Young. 
Tail with eighteen feathers. Male with a long tuft of bristles pen- 
dent from the lower part of the neck in front ; frontal wattle blue 
and red, skin of the neck and head of various tints of blue and purple, 
caruncles bright red, changing to blue, legs purplish-red ; upper 
parts brownish-yellow, with metallic lustre, changing to deep purple, 
fire-red, and bronzed green, the truncated tips of the feathers margined 
with velvet-black ; on the hind parts, the black bands much broader ; 
upper tail-coverts deep chestnut, glossed ; wing-coverts like the back, 
excepting the primary coverts, which, with the quills, are dusky, trans- 
versely banded with white, the inner minutely mottled with dusky, 
on a light brownish-red ground; tail-feathers chestnut-red, narrowly 
barred and minutely dotted with black, a subternal broad band of 
black, the tips plain chestnut ; lower parts like the upper, the tuft of 
bristles black. Female considerably inferior in size, with the wattles 
much smaller, the tuft on the breast comparatively small, and only in 
old birds ; the colours of the plumage duller, there being little of the 
refulgent hues of the male ; the lower parts brownish-black. Young 
before being fledged, are pale brownish-yellow above, pale yellowish- 
grey beneath, the top of the head brighter, marked in the middle with 
a longitudinal pale brown band ; the back and wings spotted with 
brownish-black, excepting the smaller wing-coverts, which are uni- 
formly dull brown. 
il/a/e, 49, 68. Female, 2>J, 54. 
Breeds from Texas to Massachusetts and Vermont. In the interior 
to the Missouri, and thence northward to Michigan. Common. Re- 
sident, though removing to considerable distances in autumn, in quest 
of food. 
Meleagris Gallopavo, Bonap. Syn. p. 122. 
Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Bonap. Amer. Orn. v. i. p. 79. 
Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Ndtt. Man. v. i. p. 630. 
Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Aud. Om. Biog. v. i. p. 1, 33 ^ v. v. p, 559. 
