WILD TURKEY. 
357 
The wings are concave and rounded, hardly surpassing the 
origin of the tail ; they have twenty-eight quill feathers, of 
which the first is shortest, and the fourth and fifth longest, the 
second and ninth being nearly equal ; the smaller and middling 
wing-coverts are coloured like the feathers of the body ; the 
greater coverts are copper violaceous, having a black band 
near the whitish tip ; their concealed web is blackish, sprinkled 
with dull ferruginous : in old birds, the exterior web is much 
worn by friction amongst the bushes, in consequence of which 
those feathers exhibit a very singular, unwebbed, curved ap- 
pearance, faithfully represented in the plate. The spurious 
wing, the primary coverts, and the primaries, are plain blackish, 
banded with white, which is interrupted by the shaft, and 
sprinkled with blackish ; the secondaries have the white por- 
tion so large, that they may as well be described as white, 
banded with blackish, and are, moreover, tinged with ferrugi- 
nous yellow ; this colour gradually encroaches on the white, 
and then on the blackish, in proportion as the feathers ap- 
proach the body, so that the tertials are almost entirely of that 
colour, being only sprinkled with blackish, and having metallic 
reflections on the inner web ; the anterior under wing-coverts 
are brownish black, the posterior ones being grey ; the tail 
measures more than a foot and a quarter, is rounded, and com- 
posed of eighteen wide feathers ; it is capable of being ex- 
panded and elevated, together with the superior tail-coverts, 
so as to resemble a fan, when the bird parades, struts, or wheels. 
The tail is ferruginous, mottled with black, and crossed by 
numerous narrow undulated lines, of the same colour, which 
become confused on the middle feathers ; near the tip is a broad 
black band, then the feathers are again mottled for a short dis- 
tance, and are widely tipped with ferruginous yellow. 
The feet are robust and somewhat elongated ; the tarsus 
measures more than six inches in length, being covered before 
by large alternate pentagonal plates, and furnished, on the 
inner posterior side, with a rather obtuse, robust, compressed 
spur, nearly one inch long. The toes are three before, con- 
