THE



Avicultural Magazine


THE JOURNAL OF THE

AVICULTURAL SOCIETY



Fifth Series .—-VoL II.—No. 10 .—All rights reserved. OCTOBER, 1937.



THE OCELLATED TURKEY


(Meleagris ocellata )


By David Seth-Smith


Now that the Game birds have become very popular with avicul-

turists, it may not be out of place to publish two photographs, taken

more than twenty years ago, of one of the most beautiful species of all,

the Ocellated Turkey which, alas, is now one of the rarest and least

known of them all.


Unfortunately photographs can convey little idea of the beauty of

coloration of this wonderful species though, with a little imagination,

they may help. It is difficult to describe the colours of this bird, as

they change as one views them at different angles, but the general

effect is a greenish-bronze with purer metallic green on the smaller

wing-coverts. The tail feathers and their coverts terminate in large

ocelli of brilliant greenish-blue with broad margins of reddish copper.

The naked skin of the head is blue with a band of red round the eye,

and near the eyes and on the forehead are a number of wart-like

processes of a brilliant orange colour.


This remarkable Turkey inhabits Central America, Guatemala,

Yucatan, and British Honduras, but is nowhere common, and no

serious attempts have been made to domesticate it. Indeed, the few

published accounts imply that it is quite unsuited to a life in captivity,

and lives but a few months after capture even in its own country.



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