350 
WILD TURKEY. 
The Indians make much use of their tails as fans ; the 
women weave their feathers with much art on a loose web 
made of the rind of the birch- tree, arranging them so as to keep 
the down on the inside, and exhibit the brilliant surface to the 
eye. A specimen of this cloth is in the Philadelphia Museum ; 
it was found enveloping the body of an Indian female, in the 
great Saltpetre cave of Kentucky. 
Among the benefits conferred by America on the rest of the 
world, the gift of this noble bird should occupy a distinguished 
place, as unquestionably one of the most useful of the feathered 
tribe, being capable of ministering largely to the sustenance 
and comfort of the human race. Though the turkey is sur- 
passed in external beauty by the magnificent peacock, its flesh 
is greatly superior in excellence, standing almost unrivalled for 
delicacy of texture and agreeable sapidity. On this account 
it has been eagerly sought by almost all nations, and has been 
naturalized with astonishing rapidity throughout the world, 
almost universally constituting a favourite banquet dish. 
The turkey, belonging originally to the American continent, 
was necessarily unknown to the ancients, who, in this as in a 
thousand other instances, were deficient in our most common 
and essential articles of food. Readers unacquainted with the 
fact may well be surprised to learn, that, although the intro- 
duction of this bird into Europe is comparatively modern, its 
origin has already been lost sight of, and that eminent natu- 
ralists of the last century, who lived so much nearer to the 
time of its first appearance, have expressed great uncertainty 
concerning its native country. Thus Belon, Aldrovandi, Gess- 
ner, Ray, &c., thought that it came originally from Africa and 
the East Indies, and endeavoured to recognise it in some of 
the domestic birds of the ancients. Belon and Aldrovandi 
supposed it to have been mentioned by ancient authors, but 
they mistook for it the Numida meleagris of Linne, which is 
actually an African bird, now almost naturalized in America, 
even in a wild state, so that it would be apparently more rea- 
sonable for America to regard that bird as indigenous, than 
