Plate VI
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).