356 
WILD TURKEY. 
the body, and half of the neck, are covered by a naked bluish 
skin, on which are a number of red wart-like elevations on the 
superior portion, and whitish ones on the inferior, interspersed 
with a few scattered, black, bristly hairs, and small feathers, 
which are still less numerous on the neck ; the naked skin ex- 
tends farther downwards on the inferior surface of the neck, 
where it is flaccid and membraneous, forming an undulating 
appendage, on the lower part of which are cavernous elevations, 
or wattles, A wrinkled, fleshy, conic, extensible caruncle, hairy 
and pencillated at tip, arises from the bill at its junction with 
the forehead ; when the bird is quiescent, this process is not 
much more than an inch and a half long ; but when he is ex- 
cited by love or rage, it becomes elongated, so as to cover the 
bill entirely, and depend two or three inches below it. The 
neck is of a moderate length and thickness, bearing on its in- 
ferior portion a pendent fascicle of black rigid hairs, about nine 
inches long. The body is thick, somewhat elongated, and 
covered with long truncated feathers ; these are divided into 
very light fuliginous down at base, beyond which they are 
dusky ; to this dusky portion succeeds a broad, effulgent, me- 
tallic band, changing now to copper-colour or bronze gold, 
then to violet or purple, according to the incidence of light ; 
and at tip is a terminal, narrow, velvet black band, which does 
not exist in the feathers of the neck and breast ; the lower por- 
tion of the back, and the upper part of the rump, are much 
darker, with less brilliant golden violaceous reflections ; the 
feathers of the inferior part of the rump have several concealed, 
narrow, ferruginous, transverse lines, then a black band before 
the broad metallic space, which is effulgent coppery ; beyond 
the terminal narrow black band is an unpolished bright bay 
fringe. The upper tail-coverts are of a bright bay colour, 
with numerous narrow bars of bright shining greenish ; all these 
coverts are destitute of the metallic band, and the greater num- 
ber have not the black subterminal one ; the vent and thighs 
are plain brownish cinereous, intermixed with paler ; the under 
tail-coverts are blackish, glossed with coppery towards the tip, 
and at tip are bright bay. 
