Chapter IV: The Turkey Historic (2)

Of these, figures 20 and 21 are from the same clutch, and doubtless laid by the same bird. (Nos. 30014, 30014.) They were collected by J. H. Riley at Falls Church, Va. Figure 20 is an egg measuring 66 mm. x 45 mm., the color being a pale buffy-brown, finely and nearly evenly speckled all over with umber-brown, with very minute specks to dots measuring a millimetre in diameter. The finest speckling, with no larger spots, is at the greater end (butt) for a third of the egg.

Eggs of wild turkey (_M. g. silvestris_)

Names and descriptions given in the text. All the specimens
photo natural size by Dr. Shufeldt and somewhat reduced in
reproduction. Fig. 20. Upper left-hand one. Fig. 21. Upper
right-hand one. Fig. 22. Lower left-hand one. Fig. 23. Lower
right-hand one.]

Figure 21 measures 63 mm. x 45 mm., the ground color being a pale cream, speckled somewhat thickly and uniformly all over with fine specks of light brown and lavender, with larger spots and ocellated marks of lavender moderately abundant over the middle and the apical thirds, with none about the larger end or remaining third. Figure 22 (Plate VI) is No. 31185 of the collection of the U. S. National Museum (ex Ralph Coll.); it was collected at Bridgeport, Michigan, by Allan Herbert (376, 4700, '77) and measures 68 x 46. It is of a rather deep buffy-brown or ochre, very thickly and quite uniformly speckled all over with more or less minute specks of dark brown.

Figure 23 was collected by H. R. Caldwell (91310), the locality being unrecorded (Coll. U. S. Nat. Museum, No. 32407), and measures 63 x 48. It is of a pale buffy-brown or pale _café au lait_ color, quite thickly speckled all over with fine dots and specks of light brown. Some few of the specks are of noticeably larger size, and these are confined to the middle and apical thirds. Speckling of the butt or big end extremely fine, and the specks of lighter color.

Referring to the wild turkey (_M. g. silvestris_) Bendire says (_loc. cit._, p. 116): "In shape, the eggs of the Wild Turkey are usually ovate, occasionally they are elongate ovate. The ground color varies from pale creamy white to creamy buff. They are more or less heavily marked with well-defined spots and dots of pale chocolate and reddish brown. In an occasional set these spots are pale lavender. Generally the markings are all small, ranging in size from a No. 6 shot to that of dust shot, but an exceptional set is sometimes heavily covered with both spots and blotches of the size of buckshot, and even larger. The majority of eggs of this species in the U. S. National Museum collection, and such as I have examined elsewhere, resemble in coloration the figured type of _M. gallopavo mexicanus_, but average, as a rule, somewhat smaller in size.

"The average measurement of thirty-eight eggs in the U. S. National Museum collection is 61.5 by 46.5 millimetres. The largest egg measures 68.5 by 46, the smallest 59 by 45 millimetres."

At the close of his account of _M. g. mexicanus_ Bendire states that "The only eggs of this species in the U. S. National Museum collection, about whose identity there can be no possible doubt, were collected on Upper Lynx Creek, Arizona, in the spring of 1870, by Dr. E. Palmer, whose name is well known as one of the pioneer naturalists of that Territory.

"The eggs are ovate in shape, their ground color is creamy white, and they are profusely dotted with fine spots of reddish brown, pretty evenly distributed over the entire egg. The average measurements of these eggs is 69 by 49 millimetres. The largest measures 70.5 by 49, the smallest 67 by 48 millimetres.

"The type specimen (No. 15573, U. S. National Museum collection, Pl. 3, Fig. 15) is one of the set referred to above" (_loc. cit._ p. 119).

This set of three eggs I have personally studied; they are of _M. g. merriami_, and I find them to agree exactly with Captain Bendire's description just quoted.[42]

In the Ralph Collection (U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 27232; orig. No. 10/6) I examined six (6) eggs of _M. g. intermedia_. They are of a pale ground color, all being uniformly speckled over with minute dots of lightish brown. These eggs are rather large for turkey eggs. They were collected at Brownsville, Texas, May 26, 1894.

Another set of _M. g. intermedia_ collected by F. B. Armstrong (No. 25765, coll. U. S. Nat. Mus.) are practically _unspotted_, and such spots as are to be found are very faint, both the minute and the somewhat large ones.

In Dr. Ralph's collection (U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 27080) eggs of _M. g. intermedia_ are _short_, with the large and fine dots of a pale _orange yellow_. I examined a number of eggs and sets of eggs of _M. g. osceola_, or Florida turkey. In No. 25787 the eggs are short and broad, the ground color being pale whitish, slightly tinged with brown. Some of the spots on these eggs are unusually large, in a few places, three or four running together, or are more or less confluent; others are isolated and of medium size; many are minute, all being of an earth brown, varying in shades. In the case of No. 25787 of this set, the dark-brown spots are more or less of a size and fewer in number; while one of them (No. 25787) is exactly like the egg of Plate VI, Fig. 22; finally, there is a pale one (No. 25787) with _fine_ spots, few in number in middle third, very numerous at the ends. There are _scattered large spots_ of a dark brown, the surface of each of which latter are raised with a kind of incrustation. Another egg (No. 27869) in the same tray (_M. g. osceola_) is _small_, pointed; pale ground color with very fine spots of light brown (coll. W. L. Ralph). Still another in this set (No. 27868) is markedly _roundish_, with minute brown speckling uniformly distributed. There are nine (9) eggs in this clutch (No. 27868), and apart from the differences in form, they all closely resemble each other; and this is by no means always the case, as the same hen may lay any of the various styles enumerated above, either as belonging to the same clutch, or at different seasons.

As it is not the plan of the author of the present work to touch, in this chapter, upon the general habits of wild turkeys--their courtship, their incubation, the young at various stages, nesting sites, and a great deal more having to do with the natural history of the family and the forms contained in it--it would seem that what has been set forth above in regard to the eggs of the several subspecies in our avifauna pretty thoroughly covers this part of the subject.

Shortly after the last paragraph was completed I received a valuable photograph of the nest and eggs of _M. g. merriami_, and this I desire to publish here with a few notes, although in so doing it constitutes a departure from what I have just stated above in regard to the nests of turkeys.

This photograph was kindly furnished me by my friend Mr. F. Stephens of the Society of Natural History of San Diego, California, with permission to use it in the present connection. It has not to my knowledge been published before, though the existence of the negative from which it was printed has been made known to ornithologists by Major Bendire, who says, in his account of the "Mexican Turkey" in his _Life Histories of North American Birds_ (_loc. cit._ p. 118): "That well-known ornithologist and collector, Mr. F. Stephens, took a probably incomplete set of nine fresh eggs of this species, on June 15th, 1884. He writes me: 'I was encamped about five miles south of Craterville, on the east side of the Santa Rita Mountains in Arizona; the nest was shown to my assistant by a charcoal burner. On his approach to it the bird ran off or flew before he got within good range. He did not disturb it but came to camp, and in the afternoon we both went, and I took my little camera along and photographed it. The bird did not show up again. The locality was on the east slope of the Santa Rita Mountains, in the oak timber, just where the first scattering pines commenced, at an altitude of perhaps 5000 feet.'

"A good photograph, kindly sent me by Mr. Stephens, shows the nest and eggs plainly. It was placed close to the trunk of an oak tree on a hillside, near which a good-size yucca grew, covering, apparently, a part of the nest; the hollow in which the eggs were placed was about 12 inches across and 3 inches deep. Judging from the photograph the nest was fairly well lined."

In order to complete my share of the work, I will now add here a few paragraphs and illustrations upon the skeletal differences to be found upon comparison of that part of the anatomy of wild and domesticated turkeys. This is a subject I wrote upon many years ago; what I then said I have just read over, and I find I can do no better than quote the part contained in the "Analytical Summary" of the work. It is more or less technical and therefore must be brief, though it is none the less necessary to complete the subject of the present treatise.[43]

1. As a rule, in adult specimens of _M. g. merriami_, the posterior margins of the nasal bones indistinguishably fuse with the frontals; whereas, as a rule, in domesticated turkeys these sutural traces persist with great distinctness throughout life.

2. As a rule, in wild turkeys we find the craniofrontal region more concaved and wider across than it is in the tame varieties.

3. The parietal prominences are apt to be more evident in _M. g. merriami_ than they are in the vast majority of domesticated turkeys; and the median longitudinal line measured from these to the nearest point of the occipital ridge is longer in the tame varieties than it is in the wild birds. Generally speaking, this latter character is very striking and rarely departed from.

4. The figure formed by the line which bounds the occipital area is, as a rule, roughly semicircular in a domesticated turkey, whereas in _M. g. merriami_ it is nearly always of a cordate outline, with the apex upward. In the case of the tame turkeys I have found it to average one exception to this in every twelve birds; in the exception, the bounding line of the area made a cordate figure as in wild turkeys.

5. Among the domesticated turkeys, the interorbital septum almost invariably is pierced by a large irregular vacuity; as a rule this osseous plate is entire in wild ones.

6. The descending process of a lacrymal bone is more apt to be longer in a wild turkey than in a tame one; and for the average the greater length is always in favor of the former species.

7. In _M. g. merriami_ the arch of the superior margin of the orbit is more decided than it is in the tame turkey, where the arc formed by this line is shallowed, and not so elevated.

8. We find, as a rule, that the pterygoid bones are rather longer and more slender in wild turkeys than they are among the tame ones.

9. At the occipital region of the skull, the osseous structures are denser and thicker in the tame varieties of turkeys; and, as a whole, the skull is smoother, with its salient apophyses less pronounced in them than in the wild types. There is a certain delicacy and lightness, very difficult to describe, that stamps the skull of a wild turkey, and at once distinguishes it from any typical skull of a tame one.

10. I have predicted that the average size of the brain cavity will be found to be smaller and of less capacity in a tame turkey than it is in the wild one. In the case of this class of domesticated birds, as pointed out above, this would seem to be no more than natural, for the domestication of the turkey has not been of such a nature as to develop its brain mass through the influences of a species of education; its long contact with man has taught it nothing--quite the contrary, for the bird has been almost entirely relieved from the responsibilities of using its wits to obtain its food, or to guard against danger to itself. These factors are still in operation in the case of the wild types, and the advance of civilization has tended to sharpen them.

From this point of view, then, I would say that mentally the average wild turkey is stronger than the average domesticated one, and I believe it will be found that in all these long years the above influences have affected the size of the brain-mass of the latter species in the way above indicated, and perhaps it may be possible some day to appreciate this difference. Perhaps, too, there may have been also a slight tendency on the part of the brain of the wild turkey to increase in size, owing to the demands made upon its functions due to the influence of man's nearer approach, and the necessity of greater mental activity in consequence.

Recently I examined a mounted skeleton of a female wild turkey in the collection of the United States National Museum, and apart from the skull it presented the following characters: There were fifteen vertebræ, the last one having a pair of free ribs, before we arrived at the fused vertebræ of the dorsum. Of these latter there were three coössified into one piece.

The sixteenth vertebra supports a pair of free ribs that fail to meet the sternum, there being no costal ribs for them. They bear uncinate processes.

Next we find four pairs of ribs that articulate with hæmapophyses, and through them with the sternum. There are two free vertebræ between the consolidated dorsal ones and the pelvis; and the pelvis bears a pair of free ribs, the costal ribs of which articulate by their anterior ends with the posterior border of the pair of costal ribs in front of them.

A kind of long abutment exists at the middle point on each, there to accommodate the articulation. There are six free tail vertebræ plus a long pointed pygostyle. The os furcula is rather slender, being of a typical V-shaped pattern, with a small and straight hypocleidium. With a form much as we find it in the fowl, the pelvis is characterized by _not_ having the ilia meet the sacral crista in front. The prepubis is short and stumpy. The external pair of xiphoidal processes of the sternum are peculiar in that their posterior ends are strongly bifurcated.

Fig. 24. Nest of a wild turkey _in situ_. (_M. g. merriami._)
Photo by Mr. F. Stephens, San Diego, California.]

In the skeleton of the manus, the pollex metacarpal projects forward and upward as a rather conspicuous process. Its phalanx does not bear a claw, and on the index metacarpal the indicial process is present and overlaps the shaft of the next metacarpal behind it. In the leg the fibula is free, and extends halfway down the tibiotarsal shaft.

The hypotarsus of the tarso-metatarsus is grooved mesially for the passage of tendons behind, and is also once perforated near its middle for the same purpose. As I have already stated, the remainder of the skeleton of this bird is characteristically gallinaceous and need not detain us longer here. I would add, however, that the "tarsal cartilages" in the turkey extensively ossify.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Audubon, J. J. "The Birds of America," Vol. V, pp. 54-55. Even in Audubon's time the wild turkeys were being rapidly exterminated. At this time _M. g. silvestris_ does not occur east of central Pennsylvania.

[10] Columella. (_De Re Rustica_, VIII, cap. 2.) Edwards (_Gleanings_, II, p. 269). 1760?

[11] Newton, Alfred. _A Dictionary of Birds._ (Assisted by Hans Gadow, with contributions from Richard Lydekker, Chas. S. Roy, and Robert W. Shufeldt, M. D.) Pt. IV, 1896, p. 994. The quotation is from the Art. "Turkey," and in further reference to its name, Professor Newton remarks, "The French _Coq_ and _Poule d'Inde_ (whence _Dindon_) involve no contradiction, looking to the general idea of what India then was. One of the earliest German names for the bird, _Kalekuttisch Hiim_ (whence the Scandinavian _Kalkun_) must have arisen through some mistake at present inexplicable; but this does not refer, as is generally supposed, to Calcutta, but to Calicut on the Malabar coast (Notes and Queries, ser. 6, X, p. 185).

"But even Linnæus could not clear himself of the confusion, and, possibly following Sibbald, unhappily misapplied the name _Meleagris_, undeniably belonging to the guinea-fowl, as the generic term for what we now know as the turkey, adding thereto as its specific designation the word _gallopavo_, taken from the _Gallopavus_ of Gesner, who, though not wholly free from error, was less mistaken than some of his contemporaries and even successors."

[12] Baird, Spencer F. _The Origin of the Domestic Turkey._ Rep. of the Comm. of Agricul. for the year 1866. Washington Gov. Printing Office, 1867, pp. 288-290. In this article Professor Baird undertakes to demonstrate "that there are two species of wild turkey in North America; one confined to the more eastern and southern United States, the other to the southern Rocky Mountains and adjacent part of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona; that the latter extends along eastern Mexico as far south at least as Orizaba, and that it is from this Mexican species and not from that of eastern North America that this domestic turkey is derived." [Reprinted in Hist. of N. Amer. Birds, III, p. 411, footnote.]

[13] Bennett, E. T. "The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoölogical Society delineated." [The Drawings by William Harvey; Engr. by Branston and Wright, assisted by other artists] London, 1835. Further on, this article will be quoted on other points, as it treats of the entire history of the wild turkey.

[14] In the original work, here quoted, names of persons and some other nouns are printed in capitals--an old custom which publishers of the present work decided not to follow. My MS. was made to agree with the original in all particulars. R. W. S.

[15] Pennant, Thos. Esqr. F. R. S. "An Account of the Turkey." Phil. Trans. of the Royal Society of London. Vol. LXXI for the year 1781. London [Art.] No. 1. Communicated by Joseph Banks, Esqr., P. R. S. Read December 21, 1781, pp. 77, 78.

Pennant's contribution fills a large place in the literature of the wild turkey, and further on I shall take occasion to quote still more extensively from it. It starts in by giving in brief the characters of the turkey, and in describing the wild turkey he cites the previous works of Josselyn (Voyage); Clayton (Virginia); Catesby, Belon, Gesner, Aldrovandus, Ray, Buffon, and others. He gives a "Description" of the bird, especially the "Tail," and adds that a "White Turkey"--"A most beautiful kind has of late been introduced into England of a snowy whiteness, finely contrasting with its red head. These I think came from Holland, probably bred from an accidental white pair; and from them preserved pure from any dark or variegated birds." (p. 68.)

He presents variation in "Size," quoting Josselyn (New-Eng. Rarities); Lawson (History of Carolina); and Clayton (Phil. Trans.). Also their "Manners"; their being "Gregarious"; "Their Haunts," "Place," and much else, having more to do with their habits than their history, and consequently not legitimately to be touched upon in this chapter.

[16] Coues, Elliott. "History of the Wild Turkey." _Forest and Stream_, XIII, January 1, 1879, p. 947.

Another work I have examined on this part of our subject is D. G. Elliot's "Game Birds of America," and the turkey cuts in this book were copied by Coues into the last edition of his "Key to North American Birds," and very poorly done. Dr. D. G. Elliot's superb work, illustrated by magnificent colored plates by the artist Wolfe, on "A Monograph of the Phasianidæ or the Family of the Pheasants," I have not examined. The copy in the Library of Congress was out on a loan when I made application for it. Several plates of different species of wild turkeys are to be found in it.

[17] Pennant's article is illustrated by a folding plate giving the leg of a turkey bearing a supernumery toe situated in front of the tibiotarsus with the claw above. The note in reference to it is here reproduced in order to complete the article. Philos. Trans., Vol. LXXI, Ab. III, p. 80:

"To this account I beg leave to lay before you the very extraordinary appearance on the thigh of a turkey bred in my poultry yard, and which was killed a few years ago for the table. The servant in plucking it was very unexpectedly wounded in the hand. On examination the cause appeared so singular that the bird was brought to me. I discovered that from the thigh-bone issued a short upright process, and to that grew a large and strong toe, with a sharp and crooked claw, exactly resembling that of a rapacious bird."

[18] Bartram, William. Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogalges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Choctaws. Containing an account of the soil and Natural Productions of those regions; together with the observations on the manners of the Indians. Embellished with Copper Plates.

The original edition of Bartram is cited in the _Third Instalment of American Ornithological Bibliography_ by Elliott Coues (the references being pp. 83 and 290 _bis_). Bull. U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Surv. Terr. 1879, p. 810, Govm't Printing Office. It is here in this work of his that Bartram designates the domestic turkey as _Meleagris gallopavo_, Linn.; and the wild turkey of this country (_M. occidentalis_) (p. 83) as _M. americanus_ (p. 290 _bis_).

[19] Barton, P. S. _The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal_, Vol. II, 1806, pp. 162-164. Coues, in his _Ornitho. Biblio._, cited above, omits the words, "The Philadelphia," which gives trouble to find the work in a library; he also has the year wrong, giving 1805 for 1806--the latter being correct. The copy I consulted had no Pl. 1, with the article, that I happened to see.

[20] Clinton, De Witt. _Trans. Lit. and Philos. Soc._, New York, 1, 1815, pp. 21-184. Note S. pp. 125-128.

[21] Owen, R. P. Z. S., V. 1837, pp. 34, 35.

[22] Le Conte, John. _Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. of Phila._ IX, 1857, pp. 179-181. The distinctive characters and the habits, as given by this author of the wild and domesticated turkeys of the United States, are doubtless of some value; but the deductions he draws from the comparisons made are, as we know, quite erroneous. I have not examined the article by E. Roger in the _Bull. Soc. Acclim._ cited by Coues in his _Ornitho. Biblio._ as having appeared in the "2c Ser. VII, 1870, pp. 264-266." Either the year or the pagination, or both, of the citation is wrong, and as many of the copies were out at the time of my search, and the others distributed through several libraries, I failed to obtain it. R. W. S.

[23] Gould, J. 2. On a new turkey, _Meleagris Mexicana_. P. Z. S. XXIV, 1856, pp. 61-63. (In his _Ornithol. Bibliogr._) Coues remarks upon this as follows: "Subsequently determined to be the stock whence the domestic bird descended, and hence a synonym of _M. gallopavo_, Linn."

This paper was extensively republished at the time, generally under the title of "A new species of turkey from Mexico" [all citing the P. Z. S. article]. One journal quoted it as follows: "Mr. Gould exhibited a specimen of turkey which he had obtained in Mexico, and which differed materially from the wild turkey of the United States. At the same time this turkey so closely resembled the domesticated turkey of Europe that he believed naturalists were wrong in attributing its origin to the United States species. The present specimen was therefore a new species, and he proposed to call it _Meleagris Mexicana_, which, if his theory was correct, must henceforth be the designation of the common turkey." Amer. Jour. Sci. XXII, 1856, p. 139. Under the same title this latter was reprinted in Edinb. _New Philos. Journ._ n. s., iv, 1856, pp. 371, 372. See also Bryant, H. "_Remarks on the supposed new species of turkey, Meleagris Mexicana, recently described by Mr. Gould._" Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. vi, 1857, pp. 158, 159. "In the Proceedings of the Zoölogical Society of London for 1856, page 61," says Professor Baird, "Mr. Gould characterizes as new a wild turkey from the mines of Real del Norte, in Mexico, under the name of _Meleagris Mexicana_, and is the first to suggest that it is derived from the domesticated bird, and not from the common wild turkey of eastern North America, on which he retains the name of _M. gallopavo_, of Linnæus. He stated that the peculiarities of the new species consist chiefly in the creamy white tips of the tail feathers and of the upper tail coverts, with some other points of minor importance. I suggest that the wild turkey of New Mexico, as referred to by various writers, belongs to this new species, and not to the _M. gallopavo_." (loc. cit. p. 289.) Compare the above with what Professor Baird states in the series of the _Pacif. Railroad Reports_, vol. ix, p. 618, with the remainder of the above quoted article, which is too long to reproduce here.

[24] Bennett, E. T. "Publ. with the sanction of the council under the superintendence of the Secretary and Vice Secretary of the Society. Birds. Vol. II. London, 1835, pp. 209-224." There is a very excellent wood-cut of a turkey illustrating this article (left lateral view), of which the author says: "Our own figure is taken from a young male, in imperfect plumage, brought from America by Mr. Audubon. Another specimen, in very brilliant plumage, but perhaps not purely wild, forms a part of the Society's Museum" (p. 223). Bennett derived most of his information about the habits of the wild turkey in nature "from an excellent memoir by M. Charles Lucien Bonaparte, in his continuation of Wilson's American Ornithology."

"In that work M. Bonaparte claims credit for having given the first representation of the wild turkey;* and justly so, for the figures introduced into a landscape in the account of De Laudonniere's Voyage to Florida in De Bry's Collection, and that published by Bricknell in his Natural History of North Carolina, cannot with certainty be referred to the native bird. They are besides too imperfect to be considered as characteristic representations of the species. Much about the same time with M. Bonaparte's figure appeared another, in M. Viellot's Galerie des Oiseaux, taken from a specimen in the Paris Museum.

"It is somewhat singular that so noble a bird, and in America at least by no means a rare one, should have remained unfigured until within five years of the present time; all the plates in European works being manifestly derived from domestic specimens." Bennett was aware that Audubon's Plates were published about this time, for he mentions them. He also was well informed in matters regarding the crossing of the wild male turkey with the female domestic one, and with the improvement in the breed thus obtained.

* Note: Newton disputes this and says: "In 1555 both sexes were
characteristically figured by Belon (Oiseaux, p. 249), as was
the cock by Gesner in the same year, and these are the earliest
representations of the bird known to exist." (Dict. of Birds,
pp. 995, 996.)

[25] Newton states that this assertion "is wholly untrustworthy," as carp, pickerel (and other commodities) both lived in this country (England) long before 1524, "if indeed they were not indigenous to it." (Dict. of Birds, p. 995).

[26] No two authors seem to agree upon the exact date when the turkey was really introduced into England. Here Bennett states positively 1530; Professor Baird has it 1541; Alfred Newton 1524, and so on.

[27] Leland's Collectanea, (1541).

[28] _Dugdale._ "Origines Juridiciales."

[29] Shufeldt, R. W. "The Ancestry of the American Turkey," _Shooting and Fishing_, Vol. 24, No. 13, New York, July 14, 1898, p. 246. "Wild and Domesticated Turkeys," _Ibid._ No. 17, August 11, 1898, p. 331. "A Reply to the Turkey Hunters," _Ibid._ No. 23, September 22, 1898, pp, 451, 452. "The Wild Turkey of Arizona," _Ibid._ Vol. 32, No. 5, New York, May 22, 1902, pp. 108, 109.

[30] Nelson, E. W. "Description of a New Subspecies of _Meleagris gallopavo_ and proposed changes in the nomenclature of certain North American birds." Auk, XVII, April 1900, pp. 120-123.

[31] Among the luxuries belonging to the high condition of civilization exhibited by the Mexican nation at the time of the Spanish conquest was the possession of Montezuma by one of the most extensive zoölogical gardens on record, numbering nearly all the animals of that country, with others brought at much expense from great distances, and it is stated that turkeys were supplied as food in large numbers daily to the beasts of prey in the menagerie of the Mexican Emperor. (Baird, _ibid._ pp. 288, 289.)

[32] Ogilvie-Grant, W. R. "A Hand-book to the Game-Birds." (Lloyd's Nat. Hist., London, 1897, pp. 103-111.) Genus _Meleagris_. Describes briefly some of the North American Turkeys, and also _M. ocellata_ (full page colored figure). Nest and eggs of all described in brief.

[33] Michaux, F. "Travels in N. Amer." 1802 Eng. Trans., p. 217. See also the following: Blyth, E., "Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist.," 1847, vol. xx., p 391. This author points out that these turkeys in India are flightless, black in color, small, and the appendage over the bill of great size.

[34] Dixon, E. S. "Ornamental Poultry," 1818, p. 34. This author also noted the interesting fact that the female of the domesticated turkey sometimes has the tuft of hair on her breast like the male. Bechstein refers to the old German fable or superstition that a hen turkey lays as many eggs as the gobbler has feathers in the under tail-coverts, which, as we know, vary in number. (Naturgesch. Deutschlands, B iii, 1793, s. 309.).

[35] "Gardener's Chronicle," 1852, p. 699.

[36] Darwin, Charles. "Animals and Plants Under Domestication," Vol. 1, 1868, pp. 352-355. Other facts of this character are set forth here which are of interest in the present connection.

[37] Darwin, Charles. "The Origin of Species," 1880, pp. 70, 158. He also shows that the young of wild turkey are instinctively wild.

[38] Woodhouse, Dr. (Amer. Nat. vii, 1873, p, 326.).

[39] Henshaw, H. W. Rept. Geogr. and Geol. Expl. and Surv. West of the 100th meridian. 1875. Chap. III. The Ornith. Coll. 1871-1874, p. 435.

[40] Caton, J. D. "The Wild Turkey and Its Domestication." Amer. Nat. xi, No. 6, 1877, pp. 321-330, also _Ibid._ vii, 1873, where this author states that "The vision of the wild turkey is very acute but the sense of smell is very dull." (p. 431.)

[41] Bendire, Charles, "Life Histories of North American Birds with Special Reference to Their Breeding Habits and Eggs." Washington, Govmt. Printing Office, 1892.

[42] Some of the English books contain descriptions of the eggs of our wild turkeys, as for example "A Hand-book to the Game-birds." By W. R. Ogilvie-Grant. (Lloyd's Nat. Hist.) London, 1897, pp. 103-111.

[43] Shufeldt, R. W. "Osteology of Birds," Education Dept. Bull. No. 447, Albany, N. Y., May 15, 1909. N. Y. State Mus. Bull. 130, pp. 222-224; based upon a former contribution which appeared in _The Journal of Comparative Medicine and Surgery_, July, 1887, entitled "A Critical Comparison of a Series of Skulls of the Wild and Domesticated Turkeys." (_Meleagris gallopavo silvestris_ and _M. domestica_.)