182 
MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 
wild ones. Many of these require a practised eye to 
distinguish their true character, but they are always 
rather less brilliant, and those I examined had a broad 
whitish band at the tip of the tail-coverts, and another 
at the tip of the tail itself, which instantly betrayed 
their origin, the wild ones being entirely destitute of 
the former, and the band on the tip of the tail being 
neither so wide nor so pure. 
In the following description we give the generic as 
well as the specific characters of the wild turkey, in 
order to make it complete. 
The male wild turkey, when full grown, is nearly 
four feet in length, and more than five in extent. The 
bill is short and robust, measuring two inches and a 
half to the corner of the mouth ; it is reddish, and horn 
colour at tip ; the superior mandible is vaulted, declining 
at tip, and overhangs the inferior, being longer and 
wider ; it is covered at base by a naked cere-like 
membrane, in which the nostrils are situated, they 
being half closed by a turgid membrane, and opening 
downwards; the inferior mandible slightly ascends 
towards the tip ; the aperture of the ear is defended by 
a fascicle of small decomposed feathers ; the tongue is 
fleshy and entire ; the irides are dark brown ; the 
head, which is very small in proportion to 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 extends farther 
downwards on the inferior surface of the neck, where 
it is flaccid and membranous, forming an undulating 
appendage, on the lower part of which are cavernous 
elevations, or wattles . A wrinkled, fleshy, conic, 
extensible caruncle, hairy and penicellated 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 w hen he is excited 
by love or rage, it becomes elongated, so as to cover 
