Plate III
Fig. II. Left lateral view of the skull of an old male wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). See Plate II, Fig. 6, No. 9695, Coll. U. S. National Museum. Photo natural size by Dr. Shufeldt. pmx, premaxillary; n, nasal bone; l, lacrymal bone; eth, ethmoid; p, parietal; so, supraoccipital; pl, palatine; ju, jugal; ty, tympanic; q, quadrate; a, angular of lower jaw; d, dentary. There are many more bones in the skull than those indicated, while the latter serve to invite attention to the principal ones as landmarks.
A little later on Bartram in his travels in the South published some notes on the wild turkey [now M. g. osceola] as he found them in Florida during the latter part of the eighteenth century. The original edition of his book, which I have not seen, appeared in 1791. I have, however, examined the edition of 1793, wherein on page 14 he says: "Our turkey of America is a very different species from the Meleagris of Asia and Europe; they are nearly thrice their size and weight. I have seen several that have weighed between twenty and thirty pounds, and some have been killed that have weighed near forty."
And further on in the same work he adds [Florida, p. 81]: "Having rested very well during the night, I was awakened in the morning early by the cheering converse of the wild turkey-cocks (Meleagris occidentalis) saluting each other from the sun-brightened tops of the lofty Cupressus disticha and Magnolia grandiflora. They begin at early dawn and continue till sunrise, from March to the last of April. The high forests ring with the noise, like the crowing of the domestic cock, of these social sentinels; the watchword being caught and repeated, from one to another, for hundreds of miles around, insomuch that the whole country is for an hour or more in a universal shout. A little after sunrise, their crowing gradually ceases, they quit then their high lodging places, and alight on the earth, where, expanding their silver-bordered train, they strut and dance round about the coy female, while the deep forests seem to tremble with their shrill noise."[18]
Another of the early writers (1806), who paid some attention to the history and distribution of the wild turkeys was Barton. I find the following having reference to some of his observations, viz.: "A memoir has been read before the American Philosophical Society in which the author has shown that at least two distinct species of Meleagris, or turkey, are known within the limits of North America. These are the Meleagris gallopavo, or Common Domesticated Turkey, which was wholly unknown in the countries of the Old World before the discovery of America; and the Common Wild Turkey of the United States, to which the author of the memoir has given the name Meleagris Palawa—one of its Indian names.
"The same author has rendered it very probable that this latter species was domesticated by some of the Indian tribes living within the present limits of the United States, before these tribes had been visited by the Europeans. It is certain, however, that the turkey was not domesticated by the generality of the tribes, within the limits just mentioned, until after the Europeans had taken possession of the countries of North America."[19]
Nine or ten years after Barton wrote, De Witt Clinton, who was a candidate for President of the United States in 1812, and a son of James Clinton, was one of the writers of that time on the wild turkey. He pointed out how birds, the turkey included, change their plumage after domestication, and, after giving what he knew of the introduction of the turkey into Spain from America and the West Indies, he adds: "From the Spanish turkey, which was thus spread over Europe, we have obtained our domestic one. The wild turkey has been frequently tamed, and his offspring is of a large size." (p. 126.)[20]
Nearly a quarter of a century after Clinton's article appeared, the anatomy of the wild turkey began to attract some attention. Among the first articles to appear on this part of the subject was one by the late Sir Richard Owen, who, apparently taking the similarity of the vernacular names into account, made anatomical comparisons of the organs of smell in the turkey and the turkey buzzard. Naturally, he found them very different,—quite as different, perhaps, as are the olfactory organs of an owl and an ostrich, which I, for one, would not undertake to make a comparison of for publication, simply for the fact that in both these birds their vernacular name begins with the letter o.[21]