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Family MELEAGRIDÆ.—The Turkeys

Char. Bill moderate; the nasal fossæ bare. Head and neck without feathers, but with scattered hairs, and more or less carunculated. An extensible fleshy process on the forehead, but no development of the bone. Tarsus armed with spurs in the male. Hind toe elevated. Tail nearly as long as the wing, truncate, of more than twelve feathers.

The family Meleagridæ, or Turkeys, as at present known, is entirely confined to North and Middle America, and represented only by the genus Meleagris. It forms, in combination with the Guinea-fowls (Numididæ), the Pheasants and common fowls (Phasianidæ), and the Grouse and Partridges (Tetraonidæ), a peculiar group, to which the name Alecteropodes has been given by Professor Huxley; this group is well distinguished from the Cracidæ and the Megapodidæ (which form together an opposed group, called Peristeropodes), in addition to the characters enumerated under the family names, by salient characters developed in the sternum. In the present family and its relations, as all may recall from experience at the dinner-table, the sternum, or breast-bone, is divided into a long narrow keel (lophosteon) extending far backwards; while towards the front, from each side, and separated by a very deep notch from the median portion, a wing (pleurosteon) originates obliquely, and, soon splitting in two, extends also far backwards; in front, two processes (called costal) project well forwards. In the Cracidæ and Megapodidæ, on the contrary, the sternum is not so split, the keel and wing, as above, being more continuous and the notch comparatively shallow; the costal processes are also comparatively small and obtuse.

Externally the Turkeys have considerable resemblance to the Guinea-fowls (Numididæ), but they differ from them in having a backward process of the second metacarpal bone, and in the form of the costal processes of the sternum and of the acromial process of the scapular; while they are distinguished from the Guinea-fowls and all others by the form of the pelvis (the post-acetabular area is greater than the pre-acetabular, and is also longer than broad), and by the furcula (wish-bone), which is very weak and straight, with its point (hypocleidium) straight and rod-like. To Professor Huxley we are indebted for having first pointed out most of these characters.

Although the number of known species of Meleagridæ as we understand them, is limited to two now living, the family was apparently well represented in former geological periods, no less than three having been already described from more or less perfect remains; of these, two have been found in the post-pleiocene of New Jersey, one of which (Meleagris altus, Marsh, or M. superbus, Cope) was taller than the common Turkey, while the other (Meleagris celer, Marsh) was much smaller. The third species (Meleagris antiquus, Marsh) lived at a still earlier date, its remains having been obtained in the miocene beds of Colorado.

Genus MELEAGRIS, Linnæus

Meleagris, Linnæus, Syst. Nat. 1735. (Type, Meleagris gallopavo, Linn.)

¼ ¼ ¼

Meleagris gallopavo.

Gen. Char. Legs with transverse scutellæ before and behind; reticulated laterally. Tarsi with spurs. Tail rounded, rather long, usually of eighteen feathers. Forehead with a depending fleshy cone. Head and the upper half of the neck without feathers. Breast of male in most species with a long tuft of bristles.

Species and Varieties

M. gallopavo. Head livid blue, legs red, general color copper-bronze, with copper and green reflections, each feather with a velvet-black margin; all the quills brown, closely barred with white. Tail-feathers chestnut, narrowly barred with black; the tip with a very broad, subterminal black bar.

Tail-coverts dark purplish-chestnut throughout, with the tips not lighter. Tip of tail-feathers scarcely paler chestnut than the ground-color. Hab. Eastern Province of United States … var. gallopavo.

Tail-coverts chestnut, the tips much paler, sometimes almost white. Tip of tail-feathers light brownish-yellow or white; sometimes with the coverts broadly whitish. Hab. Southern portion of Western Province of United States, from Texas to Arizona. Table-lands of Mexico, south to Orizaba, Mirador, etc. … var. mexicanus.

The M. ocellatus¹¹³ of Honduras and Yucatan is a very distinct species, and one which vies with the Phasianidæ of Asia in the brilliancy of its coloring. It is very rare in collections, and has a very restricted distribution.

Meleagris gallopavo, var. gallopavo, Linn

WILD TURKEY

Meleagris gallopavo, Linnæus, Syst. Nat. I, 1758, 156.—Gmelin, I, 1788, 732.—Latham, Ind. Orn. II, 1790, 618.—Stephens, in Shaw’s Zoöl. XI, i, 1819, 156 (domestic bird).—Bonap. Am. Orn. I, 1825, 79, pl. ix.—Aud. Orn. Biog. I, 1831, 1 and 33; V, 1839, 559, pl. i.—Ib. Birds Amer. V, 1842, 42, pl. cclxxxvii, cclxxxviii.—Nuttall, Man. I, 1832, 630.—Reichenbach, Systema Av. 1851, pl. xxvi.—Ib. Icones Av. tab. 289.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 615.—Dresser, Ibis, 1866, 25 (Southeastern Texas, breeds).—Max. Cab. J. VI, 1858, 426. Meleagris americana, Bartram, Travels, 1791, 290. Meleagris sylvestris, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. IX, 447. Gallopavo sylvestris, Leconte, Pr. A. N. Sc. Phil. 1857, 179. Meleagris fera, Vieillot, Galerie Ois. II, 1824, 10, pl. x.—Gray. Cat. Gall. V, 42, 1867.—Wild Turkey, Clayton, Philos. Trans. XVII, 1693, 992.—Pennant, Philos. Trans. LXXI, 1781, 67.—Ib. Arctic Zoöl. No. 178. American Turkey, Latham, Syn. II, ii, 676. Gallopavo sylvestris, Novæ Angliæ, Ray, Syn. 51. Gallopavo sylvestris, Catesby, Carol. I, 1730, App. p. xliv.—Brisson, Orn. V, 1760, 162.

Meleagris gallopavo.

Sp. Char. The naked skin of the head and neck is blue; the excrescences purplish-red. The legs are red. The feathers of the neck and body generally are very broad, abruptly truncate, and each one well defined and scale-like; the exposed portion coppery-bronze, with a bright coppery reflection in some lights, in the specimens before us chiefly on the under parts. Each feather is abruptly margined with velvet-black, the bronze assuming a greenish or purplish shade near the line of junction, and the bronze itself sometimes with a greenish reflection in some lights. The black is opaque, except along the extreme tip, where there is a metallic gloss. The feathers of the lower back and rump are black, with little or no copper gloss. The feathers of the sides behind, and the coverts, upper and under, are of a very dark purplish-chestnut, with purplish-metallic reflections near the end, and a subterminal bar of black; the tips are of the opaque purplish-chestnut referred to. The concealed portion of the coverts is dark chestnut barred rather finely with black; the black wider than the interspaces. The tail-feathers are dark brownish-chestnut, with numerous transverse bars of black, which, when most distinct, are about a quarter of an inch wide and about double their interspaces; the extreme tip for about half an inch is plain chestnut, lighter than the ground-color; and there is a broad subterminal bar of black about two inches wide on the outer feathers, and narrowing to about three quarters of an inch to the central ones. The innermost pair scarcely shows this band, and the others are all much broken and confused. In addition to the black bars on each feather, the chestnut interspaces are sprinkled with black. The black bands are all most distinct on the inner webs; the interspaces are considerably lighter below than above.

There are no whitish tips whatever to the tail or its coverts. The feathers on the middle of the belly are downy, opaque, and tipped obscurely with rusty whitish.

The wing-coverts are like the back; the quills, however, are blackish-brown, with numerous transverse bars of white, half the width of the interspaces. The exposed surfaces of the wing, however, and most of the inner secondaries, are tinged with brownish-rusty, the uppermost ones with a dull copper or greenish gloss.

The female differs in smaller size, less brilliant colors, absence generally of bristles on the breast and of spur, and a much smaller fleshy process above the base of the bill.

Male. Length, 48.00 to 50.00; extent, 60.00; wing, 21.00; tail, 18.50. Weight, 16 to 35 lbs. Female. Weight about 12 lbs.; measurements smaller in proportion.

Hab. Eastern Province of the United States, and Canada. West along the timbered river-valleys towards the Rocky Mountains; south to the Gulf coast.

There is some question as to the names to be applied to the two races of Northern Meleagris, and especially as to which is entitled to bear the name of gallopavo. The original description of M. gallopavo quotes the New England Turkey as described by Ray, but as far as the characters given go refers rather to the domestic form, which is equivalent to M. mexicana of Gould. In this state of the case we therefore think it as well to use gallopavo for the eastern race, although the arguments of Major Leconte and others in favor of applying it to the wild Mexican, and its derivative the domestic variety, are not without much weight.

Habits. The Wild Turkey is found throughout eastern North America, from South Carolina northward, and from the Atlantic to Texas and Arkansas. It has probably become an extinct species in New England, though within a few years individuals have been shot in Montague, Mass., and in other towns in Franklin County. The construction of railroads, however, and the settlement of the country, have probably led to their final extermination; at least, I have known of none being taken within the limits of Massachusetts for several years.

In the unsettled portions of the Southern and Western States, and in the country watered by the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers and their affluents, these birds are comparatively plentiful, though the question of their final extinction is probably only one of time, and that not very distant. In Audubon’s day they were to be found along the whole line of the Alleghanies, where they still occur, but have become very wary and to be approached only with the greatest difficulty. In Louisiana and in Kentucky, Audubon found them most abundant, and in these States he enjoyed the most favorable opportunities for observing their very remarkable habits in regions then comparatively undisturbed by the intrusion of civilized man. They are said to be not uncommon in Virginia, and are not unfrequently met with even in the vicinity of Washington.

Dr. Woodhouse found this species abundant throughout the wooded portions of the Indian Territory and Texas. While in the Creek country his party killed numbers of them daily. Many of them were very large, and weighed upwards of nineteen pounds each, although at that time they were in poor condition. They were quite abundant along the Rio San Pedro in Texas.

Mr. Dresser found the Wild Turkey common in all the portions of Texas and Mexico that he visited, and particularly so on the rivers between San Antonio and the Rio Grande. His first Turkey hunt was on the Upper Medina River, about forty miles from San Antonio. It proved to be wary and difficult to approach in the daytime; but by watching to see where they roosted, and visiting them by moonlight, one or two could generally be secured. They generally preferred roosting in high cottonwood-trees, on the banks of a stream, perching as high up as possible. He once saw eleven Turkeys on one large bough of a cottonwood-tree on the Medina. When the pecan-nuts are ripe the Turkeys become very fat, as they are extremely fond of these nuts, which are very oily. One very plump bird was found, after it had been dressed, to weigh sixteen pounds. Mr. Dresser was informed by the hunters, that, for a nest, the Turkeys scratch a hole in the ground, or make a sort of nest in the grass under a bush, and that the eggs resemble those of the tame Turkey, except in being smaller and more elongated in form. The Mexicans, on the Upper Rio Grande, sometimes domesticate the Wild Turkey, and at Piedras Negras Mr. Dresser saw two that had been caught when quite young and had become very tame. The female was then sitting, and the eggs, when examined, were found to agree with the account given him by the hunters.

Mr. Audubon, in his very full and minute account of their habits, speaks of them as irregularly migratory and gregarious, their migrations having reference only to the abundance of food, and the meeting together in the same localities being to a large degree caused by the same source of attraction,—the supply of mast in certain regions. In this way they desert sections where the supply is exhausted, and advance towards those where it is more plentiful.

Late in October these birds assemble in flocks in the rich bottom-lands of the Western rivers, the male birds associating in parties of from ten to a hundred, and keeping apart from the females. The latter are simultaneously moving into the same regions, but only in small family groups, each leading its own flock, then nearly grown. Gradually they unite with other families, forming at length parties of seventy or eighty. They are said to avoid very carefully the old males, who have the very unparental disposition to destroy the young birds even when nearly grown. These migrations are made on foot except when they are compelled to cross a stream. On their first coming to the banks of a river they are said to make a pause there of one or two days before they attempt to cross, the old males strutting about up and down the banks, making a loud gobbling, and calling to one another as if to raise their courage to a befitting point. Even the females and the young assume something of the same pompous demeanor, spreading out their tails, running round one another, and making a loud purring noise. At length, after this prolonged preparation for the passage, they all mount to the top of a high tree, and, at a signal given by their leader, take flight for the opposite shore. Occasionally some fall into the water, when these bring the wings close to the body, spread out the tail, and plying their legs with great vigor move rapidly towards the shore, where, by a violent effort, they extricate themselves from the water. After thus crossing a stream of any magnitude, they are often found in a bewildered state, and fall an easy prey to the hunter.

Where their food occurs abundantly they separate into smaller flocks, composed of birds of all ages and sexes. At times they are known to approach farmhouses, associate with the domesticated fowl, and enter the corn-cribs in quest of food, passing the fall and the winter in this manner.

Early in February the love-season is said to commence, the first demonstrations being made by the males, but for some time persistently avoided by the females. At this period the sexes roost apart. When a female utters a call-note, the male birds within hearing return the cry, uttering notes similar to those with which the domestic Turkey greets any very unusual sound. If the call-note has been uttered by a female on the ground, the males fly to the place, spreading and erecting their tails, drawing their heads back on their shoulders, depressing their wings with a quivering motion, and strutting pompously about. At the same time they emit from their lungs a succession of very peculiar puffs. On these occasions the males often encounter each other, and desperate contests ensue, which frequently have a fatal termination, caused by furious blows inflicted on the head. When one Cock-Turkey has thus destroyed its rival, it is said to caress the dead body in an apparently affectionate manner.

When the Turkeys have mated, the connection is supposed to last for that season, though a male Turkey is often known to have more than a single mate; and the hens are said also to keep apart from the males while they are laying their eggs, for the cock would inevitably destroy them. At the end of the love-season the males become emaciated, and cease to gobble. They then separate entirely from the females, and keep apart by themselves until they recover their strength, when they reunite in small flocks.

The female is said to begin to deposit her eggs about the middle of April, selecting for that purpose a place as much concealed as possible from her many enemies. The nest, always on the ground, consists of a few withered leaves in a hollow scratched out by the side of a fallen log, or the top of a prostrate tree, or under a thicket, or within the edge of a cane-brake, but always in a dry place. The eggs sometimes amount to twenty in number, though there are usually from ten to fifteen. They are described as of a dull cream-color, sprinkled with reddish dots. When the female leaves her nest, she is said to be very careful to cover them with leaves, so that it is always difficult for any one to find them. Mr. Audubon observed that Turkey-hens not unfrequently selected small islands in which to deposit their eggs, apparently on account of the great masses of drift-timber which accumulated at their heads, in which they could seek protection and shelter.

If a female is approached while sitting on her eggs, she rarely moves unless she is discovered. Mr. Audubon has frequently approached within a few paces of a nest, the female remaining undisturbed. They seldom abandon their nest when it has been discovered by man, but forsake it if any of the eggs have been destroyed by any kind of animal. If the eggs are taken or destroyed, the female prepares for another nest, but otherwise has only one brood in a season. Audubon also states that he has known several hens associate together, deposit their eggs in the same nest, and rear their broods together, having once found three hens sitting on forty-two eggs in a single nest, one female at least being always present to protect it. When the eggs are near hatching, the female will not leave her eggs under any circumstances, and will suffer herself to be made a prisoner rather than abandon them. The mother assists the young birds to extricate themselves from the egg-shell, caresses and dries them with her bill, and aids them in their first efforts to totter out of the nest. As the brood follow her, she is very watchful against Hawks or other enemies, spreads her wings a little to protect them, and calls them close to her side, keeping them on dry ground and carefully guarding them from wet, which is very injurious to them when young. When two weeks old, they begin to be able to follow their mother, at night to roost in the low limb of some tree, and to leave the woods in the daytime in quest of berries and other food. The young usually feed on various kinds of small berries and insects. The full-grown Turkeys prefer the pecan-nuts and wild grapes to any other kind of food.

They are also said to feed on grass, various kinds of plants, corn, and other grain, seeds, fruit, and also upon beetles, small lizards, tadpoles, etc. In feeding in the woods, they turn over the dry leaves with their feet, and seem instinctively to know the presence of suitable food. They not unfrequently betray their presence in the neighborhood by the bare places they thus leave behind them in the woods where they have been feeding.

After heavy falls of snow and the formation of a hard crust, the Turkeys are said to be compelled to remain several days on their roosts without food thus proving their capability of enduring a continued abstinence.

Turkeys are hunted in various ways and by different expedients to facilitate their destruction. In the spring they are attracted by drawing the air, in a peculiar manner, through one of the second joint-bones of a wing. The sound thus produced resembles the voice of the female, on hearing which the male comes up and is shot. The cry of the Barred Owl is also imitated at night where Turkeys are at roost, who betray the place by their rolling gobble, uttered when alarmed. One of the most common methods of capturing Wild Turkeys is by means of a trap known as a Turkey-pen. A covered enclosure is made, constructed of trees, about four feet high and of various sizes, closed everywhere except at one end, where a small opening is left through which a small trench is dug, sloping very gradually at both ends, into and from the pen. The portion nearest the enclosure is covered. This passage-way, the interior of the pen, and the vicinity of the opening, to some distance into the forest, are strewn with corn. The Turkeys, attracted by the corn, follow it into the pen, and when they wish to leave endeavor to get out by the sides, but have not intelligence enough to escape by the opening through which they entered. In this manner they are sometimes entrapped in great numbers.

In unsettled parts of the country, Wild Turkeys are often known to associate with tame ones, sometimes to fight with them and to drive them from their food.

Mr. Audubon supposed our common tame Turkey to have originated in these birds, yet in his accounts of the habits of the latter he mentions several indications of divergence. A Wild Turkey which he had reared almost from the shell, and which had become very tame, would never roost with the domesticated birds, but always betook itself at night to the roof of the house, where it remained until dawn.

Mr. Bachman states that Wild Turkeys kept in confinement, in a condition of partial domestication, but separate from the domestic birds, lose the brilliancy of their plumage in the third generation, become of a pale brown, and have here and there an intermixture of white feathers. On the other hand, Major Leconte states, most positively, that the Wild Turkey has never been known to become so nearly domesticated as to propagate its race in confinement, notwithstanding the many efforts made to accomplish this result. This statement is, however, negative, and must be taken with reservation. In 1852, in Mr. Barnum’s grounds, near Niagara Falls, I saw Wild Turkeys with broods of young birds, though how far successful this attempt proved in the sequel I do not know, and Dr. Bachman’s statement seems to be quite positive evidence that they can be thus reared.

Mr. Audubon describes the eggs of the Wild Turkey as measuring 2.87 inches in length and 2.00 in breadth, and rather pointed at one end; their ground-color is given as of a uniform pale-yellowish tint, marked all over with pale rusty-brown spots.

Specimens in my collection vary from 2.55 to 2.35 inches in length, and in breadth from 1.85 to 1.75 inches. They are of an elongate-oval shape, are pointed at one end, quite obtuse at the other. The ground is a rich dark cream-color, very generally spotted with rounded blotches of a rare umber-brown.

Meleagris gallopavo, var. mexicana, Gould

MEXICAN TURKEY

Meleagris mexicana, Gould, Pr. Zoöl. Soc. 1856, 61.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 618.—Coues, P. A. N. S. Philad. 1866, 93 (Fort Whipple, Arizona).—Elliot, Illust. II, pl. xxxviii.—Baird, Rept. Agricultural Dept. for 1866 (1867) 288.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 523. Meleagris gallopavo, Gray, Cat. Gallinæ, Brit. Mus. V, 1867, 42.

Sp. Char. Similar to var. gallopavo, but feathers of the rump, the tail-coverts, and tail-feathers, tipped with whitish, instead of dark rusty; gloss more greenish. ♂ (44,731, Mirador): Wing, 20.50; tail, 18.50; culmen, 1.00; tarsus, 6.50; middle toe, 3.50.

Hab. Rocky Mountains, from Western Texas to Arizona, and south along the table land of Mexico.

Wild Turkeys from the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains differ strikingly from those east of the Mississippi in the feathers of the sides of the body behind, and in the upper and under tail-coverts. These are all tipped with light brownish-yellow for about half an inch, more or less with the region, and the tail is tipped with the same. The chestnut ground of the tail and coverts is also considerably lighter. The gloss on the feathers of the rump is green, not purple. The coverts, too, lack in a measure the purple shade in the chestnut. The metallic reflections generally have rather more green than in the eastern bird.

In one specimen (♀, 10,030, from Fort Thorn) the light edgings are almost white, and so much extended as to conceal the entire rump. All the feathers of the under parts of the body are edged broadly with white, and the tail is tipped with the same for more than an inch. This specimen also has the head considerably more hairy than in the eastern skins, but the others from the same region do not differ so much in this respect from eastern ones.

Two specimens from the Llano Estacado of Texas are exactly intermediate between New Mexican skins and examples from Arkansas, the former being typical mexicana, and the latter slightly different from true gallopavo. These Texan specimens have the tips of the upper tail-coverts pale ochraceous, instead of pure white; in the Arkansas skins these tips are rufous-chestnut, instead of dark maroon-chestnut, as in typical gallopavo from Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Many, or indeed most, specimens of mexicana have the black subterminal zone of the tail with a more or less distinct metallic bronzing, which we have never seen in any specimens of gallopavo.

It is to this race that we are indebted for the origin of our domestic Turkey, and not to that of the eastern parts of North America.

Habits. There is very little on record as to the possession of distinctive peculiarities by this race of North American Turkeys. If, as is now generally supposed, it be the original source whence the domestic fowl was derived, we are all sufficiently conversant with its performances in the barnyard, and its excellences for the table.

Specimens of its eggs collected in Arizona exhibit no noteworthy differences from the gallopavo.

In the accompanying foot-note we reproduce an article on the origin of the domestic Turkey, by Professor Baird, published in the Report of the Agricultural Department for 1866, which contains some points of interest, bearing on the origin of the domestic Turkey and the habits of the Mexican variety.¹¹⁴