BIRDS-PH A SIANIDAE—MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 
617 
Major Leconte states furthermore, that the wild turkey has never been so domesticated as to 
propagate its race in confinement, notwithstanding the many efforts made to accomplish this 
result. 
The difference in the color of the flesh of the two birds when cooked is quite appreciable, that 
of the wild bird being much darker. 
It is upon the whole exceedingly probable that the two birds are specifically distinct. 
Whether the domestic species he descended from the one recently described by Mr. Gould, or 
not, remains to he ascertained. In the next article I describe skins which appear to he referable 
to Gould’s M. mexicana, and this certainly indicates a near approach to the tamed turkey in 
the whitish bars of the tail coverts and the tail. The skin of the head, however, appears to he 
of the same color, and no difference in the carunculation of the throat was noticed, although 
this may have been obscured by drying. The skin of the head appeared more pilose, hut there 
was the same caruncle at the base of the bill. 
If the dewlap he characteristic of a species at present only known in captivity, then, as 
Major Leconte remarks, it should bear the name of M. gallopavo, as based by Linnaeus 
essentially upon the description by Brisson of Gallopavo sylvestris, in which this dewlap is 
particularly mentioned. In this event our wild bird will be entitled to a new name, which 
might be that of Bartram, in 1791, Meleagi'is americana. Should the M. mexicana be the 
original of the domestic species, Gould’s name will become a synonym, if it he proved that 
gallopavo refers to the same bird. 
In conclusion I venture to suggest the following hypothesis, which, however, is not original, 
with myself: That there are really three species of turkey, besides the M. ocellata , a 
fourth species from Central America, entirely different from the rest. That one of these, M. 
americana, is, probably, peculiar to the eastern half of North America; another, M. mexicana, 
belongs to Mexico, and extends along the table lands to the Rocky mountains, the Gila, and 
the Llano Estacado, and a third is the M. gallopavo, or domesticated bird. That -it is not at all 
improbable that the last was originally indigenous to some one or more of the West India islands, 
whence it was transplanted as tamed to Mexico and other parts of America, and from Mexico 
taken to Europe about A. D. 1520. Finally, that the wild turkeys were probably completely 
exterminated by the natives, as has been the case with equally large birds in other islands, as 
the dodo and solitaire. 
This hypothesis will explain the fact of our meeting nowhere at the present day auy wild 
turkeys resembling the domestic one. I have an indistinct recollection of a statement that our 
barn yard turkey came originally from Bermuda or Jamaica, but I cannot speak positively 
in regard to it. 
The entire subject is one of much interest, and deserves to be investigated thoroughly. It is 
quite possible that a careful examination of the external form and habits of the New Mexican 
bird may do much to throw full light on the whole question. 
78 b 
July 3, 1858. 
