hen. Dressed in a simple garb, they look but little like their parents. Above they show a reddish-brown or rufous. coloring, which fades into a rusty-white below. Excepting a dusky streak which starts from the posterior part of the eye and crosses the auricular regions obliquely downward, and a whitish bill, they have nothing to diversify the monotony of their plumage. But when they have attained the age of four or five months, they show their heredity so plainly. that their identity cannot be disputed or mistaken.

In the adult, the tail is reddish-brown or gray above, with narrow bars of black. Terminally, it is crossed by a slender band of pale ash, which is preceded by a broader one of black, and this by another of an ashy color. The upper parts are ochraceous-brown, and finely mottled with grayish markings. The lower parts are chiefly white, with broad transverse bars of light brown, which are mostly hidden from view upon the abdomen. Upon the shoulders the shafts of the feathers have pale streaks, which also exist in those of the wing-coverts. The upper tail-coverts and the wings are marked with pale, grayish cordate spots, while the lower tailcoverts are pale ochraceous, each being provided with a terminal delta-shaped spot of white, which is bordered with dusky. The neck-tufts are brownish-black. The male measures eighteen inches in length, and has a breadth of wings of seven and two-tenths inches. The tail is about seven inches long. The female is smaller than the latter, with similar colors, but has less prominent tufts upon the sides of the neck.

The eggs of this species are usually of a uniform darkcream color, but sometimes show a nearly pure-white ground. In most specimens there are no markings at all, but when they do occur, are either quite numerous and conspicuous, or few in number, and obscure. They are usually ovoidal, but forms are occasionally met with which are nearly spherical. Their average dimensions, as obtained from specimens from the most diverse localities, are about 1.64 by 1.18

inches. As far as known the species never produces more than a single brood annually, usually nesting, as has been previously stated, on the ground, but instances are recorded by Samuels, where the female has occupied a crow's nest, or the shelter of some tall broken trunk of a tree.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

L

ITTLE is known of the early history of the domestic Turkey. Writers of the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries seem to have been ignorant about it, and to have regarded it as the guinea-fowl or pintado of the ancients, a mistake which was not cleared up until the middle of the last century. The name it now bears, and which it received in England, where it is reputed to have been introduced in 1541, was given to it from the supposition that it came originally from Turkey. As far back as 1573 we read of it as having been the Christmas fare of sturdy British yeomanry.

Oviedo, a Spanish writer, speaks of it as a kind of peacock that was once very abundant in New Spain, as Mexico was called in his day, and which had already, in 1526, been transported in a domestic condition to the West Indies and the Spanish Main, where it was maintained by the Christian settlers.

Among the luxuries possessed by Montezuma, the proud, dignified, semi-cultured monarch of the Aztecs, was one of the most extensive zoölogical gardens on record. Representatives of nearly all of the animals of the country over which he reigned, as well as others, brought at great expense from long distances, were to be found within its walls. Turkeys, it is said, were daily supplied in large numbers to the carnivores of his menagerie.

Respecting the time when this bird was first reclaimed in Mexico from its wild state, there can be no idea. Probably it has been domesticated from remote antiquity. No doubt exists, however, as to its being reared by the Mexicans at

the period of the Spanish Conquest, and of its subsequent introduction into Europe, either from New Spain, or from the West India Islands, into which it had been previously carried.

Audubon, one of the early pioneers of American ornithology, supposed our common barnyard Turkey to have originated in the wild bird so prevalent in the eastern half of

our great country. But it has always been a matter of surprise to naturalists that the latter did not assimilate, by interbreeding and reversion, more intimately in color and habits to the domestic form. No suspicion, until recently, appears to have been entertained that the two birds might belong to different species. That such is the true status of things, there is now no reasonable doubt.

Our common Wild Turkey, once so plentiful in Pennsylvania, is now restricted to the more eastern and southern portions of the United States, while in the parts of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona adjacent to the southern Rocky Mountains, and thence stretching southward along the eastern slope of Mexico as far as Orizaba, there exists another form, essentially different, which, by way of distinction, has been popularly called the Mexican Turkey. It is from this species, and not from the other, as has been erroneously supposed and taught, that the domestic fowl has been derived. Even in this enlightened age, with so many ornithological teachers on every hand, we see this mistake propagated by such as know better, and whose business it is, or ought to be, to have a care that truth shall prevail.

Between the wild bird of Eastern North America and the Mexican and typical barnyard fowls there are differences which must be apparent even to the most superficial observer. The extremities of the tail-feathers, as well as the feathers overlying the base of the tail, are in the latter creamy or fulvous white, while in the former they are of a decided chestnut-brown color. Other characteristics exist, but these only become evident to the keen-sighted ornithologist.

The difficulty experienced in establishing a cross between our wild and tame birds, shows that they are not as closely related as was once supposed. Did a near kinship subsist, interbreeding could most readily be accomplished. With the Mexican Turkey, matters are otherwise. That a relationship does obtain between the domestic bird and the latter -its wild original-there can be no question, as specimens of the naturalized species are often met with which are nearly the counterpart of its Mexican progenitor, differing only in the greater development of the fatty appendages of the head and neck, differences which may be accounted for as the effects of the influences to which the birds have been subjected by man. No well-authenticated instances of similar