234 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
General Habits. —This great wild Turkey, inhabitant of the 
mountains of the Southwest, king of game birds in the United States, 
was first seen by white men in New Mexico three hundred and eighty- 
eight years ago, eighty-two years before the first birds were recorded 
from New England after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
The quaint description given by Castenada, the Spanish historian 
of the Coronado expedition, of these wild Turkeys seen in 1540, as 
“cocks with great hanging chins” amusingly bespeaks the impression 
made upon unaccustomed eyes by these remarkable birds. 
In the days of one of our first government explorations, the Wheeler 
Survey, Mr. Henshaw wrote of their abundance and habits—“toward 
the head of the Gila, in New Mexico, the canyons in November were 
literally swarming with these magnificent birds. . . They roost at 
night in the large cottonwoods by the streams, and soon after daylight, 
having visited the stream, they usually betake themselves to the dry 
hills where they feed, in the fall at least, almost exclusively upon the 
seeds of grasses and upon grasshoppers. I think they return once or 
twice during the day to drink. . . Apparently the only danger they 
have to fear in these regions is from birds of prey, and especially the 
panthers. In certain portions of the Gila Canyon the tracks of these 
animals are very numerous; these sections always appear to have been 
depopulated of Turkeys, an occasional pile of feathers marking the spot 
where one had fallen a victim to a panther” (1875, pp. 434-435). 
Some years later, members of the Biological Survey reported Mer- 
riam Turkeys quite common in the Chuska Mountains, especially near 
Cottonwood Pass, where their tracks were seen on many of the trails 
and in the mud at the edges of small lakes. The Navajos of the region 
never kill them for their own use, but after snow falls often bring them 
in for the white men, keeping the feathers and tassels for their cere¬ 
monies. Only a few Turkeys still range over Mount Taylor, where they 
were formerly very common. During a stay of eight days—in August, 
1905—Mr. Hollister saw only one flock of five or six birds. As he 
reported, they were ranging in an open stretch of yellow pine country 
and were evidently feeding on the grasshoppers which were very plenti¬ 
ful there (MS). In the yellow pines of the old crater of Mount Taylor 
September 21, 1906—Mr. Bailey saw a flock of about a dozen grown 
birds still with the hen at a creek, and tracks were found along the 
creek from 7,000-9,000 feet, throughout the yellow pine belt. In the 
Capitan Mountains hunters reported that the birds had largely been 
killed out, but a rancher at the east end of the range said they were 
numerous about his place. 
At the heads of the Mimbres and Powderhorn Canyons in the Mogol- 
lon Mountains in May, 1906, tracks were still common, and as Mr. 
Bailey reported—“some of the scrub oak and wild oat slopes were 
