As these fowls are found at present both in Asia and Africa, it may be worth while to inquire at what period they were carried thither, especially as these quarters of the world have been by some considered as their native countries. In China there are no other turkeys than those which have been introduced from other parts, as we are expressly assured by Du Halde, though he erroneously adds that they were quite common in the East Indies. They were carried to Persia by the Armenians and other trading people, and to Batavia by the Dutch[1537]. In the time of Chardin they were so scarce in Persia that they were kept in the Emperor’s menagerie[1538]. In the kingdom of Congo, on the Gold Coast, and at Senegal, there are none but those belonging to the European factories. According to Father de Bourzes there are none of them in the kingdom of Madura; and we are told by Dampier that this is the case in the island of Mindanao. Prosper Alpinus also gives the same account in regard to Nubia and Egypt; and Gemelli Carreri says there is none of them in the Philippines; though I agree with Buffon in laying very little stress upon the Travels known under that name, which we have reason to suppose not genuine.
It is worthy of remark, that Cavendish found a great number of turkeys in the island of St. Helena so early as the year 1588; and Barrington misapplies this circumstance to prove that these fowls did not come from America. It is, however, very doubtful whether Cavendish really meant our turkeys, as he says, “Guiney cocks, which we call turkeys[1539];” for the first name belongs to what are at present called pintados; and it is therefore uncertain which kind ought here to be understood. But even allowing that they were turkeys, is it improbable that they should be on an island which had often been visited by the Portuguese? The account of De la Croix is of as little weight; for he says that in the woods of Madagascar there are many coqs d’Inde[1540]. De la Croix published his book in 1688, at which time there were in South America wild horses and wild cattle. Does this, therefore, invalidate the certainty of these animals being carried thither from Europe?
I intended to enter into a critical examination of those grounds upon which Barrington endeavours to prove that turkeys were originally brought from Africa; but on reading over his essay once more, I find the greater part of his arguments are sufficiently refuted by what I have proved from the most authentic testimony; and nothing now remains but to add a few observations. Barrington considers it improbable that these fowls should be so soon spread all over Europe, as Cortez first visited Mexico in 1519, subdued the capital in 1521, and returned to Spain in 1527. To me, however, it does not appear incredible; for I could prove by several instances, that the curiosity excited by the most remarkable American productions soon became general. Those, for example, who take the trouble to inquire into the history of maize or Turkish corn will make the same remark; though it is a truth fully established that we procure that grain from America. How soon did tobacco become common! In the year 1599 the seeds were brought to Portugal; and in the beginning of the seventeenth century it began to be cultivated in the East Indies. When Barrington asserts that these fowls were carried to America by the Europeans, in the same manner as horses and cattle, this argument may be turned against himself; for he must doubtless find it equally improbable that they should so soon become common, numerous and wild, in the New World, as they must have been according to the authorities above quoted.
As many fat turkeys were purchased yearly in Languedoc and sent to Spain in the time of cardinal Perron[1541], it is thence concluded that these fowls were not brought to France through the latter. Perron died in 1620. At that period turkeys were very common; and whoever is acquainted with the industry of the Spaniards will not find it strange that the French should begin earlier to make the rearing of these animals an employment. How falsely should we reason, were we to say that it is impossible the English and French should procure the best wool from Spain, because the Spaniards purchase the best cloth from the French and the English!
One proof by which Barrington endeavours to show that turkeys were esteemed so early as the fifteenth century is very singular. He quotes from Leland’s Itinerary that capons of Grease were served up at an entertainment, under Edward IV., in 1467. The passage alluded to I cannot find; but an author must be very self-sufficient and bold indeed, to convert capons of Grease into capons of Greece, and to pretend that these were turkeys[1542].
What, however, most excites my surprise is, that the name of these fowls even should be assumed by this writer as a ground for his assertion. Had they, says he, been brought from America, they would have been called American or West Indian fowls; as if new objects had names given to them always with reflection. Names are often bestowed upon objects before it is known what they are or whence they are procured. Ray, Minshew[1543], and others have been induced by the name turkey-fowls to consider Turkey as their original country; but whoever is versed in researches of this kind must know that new foreign articles are often called Turkish, Italian, or Spanish. Is Turkey the original country of maize? or is Italy the original country of these birds, because they have been sometimes called Italian fowls? Even allowing that turkeys had acquired their German name (kalekuter) from Calicut, this, at any rate, would prove nothing further than that it was once falsely believed that these animals were brought from Calicut to Europe: but I suspect that the appellation kalekuter, as well as the names truthenne, putjen, and puten, were formed from their cry. Chardin offers a conjecture which is not altogether to be neglected. That traveller thinks that these fowls were at first considered as a species of the domestic fowl, and that they were called Indian, because the largest domestic fowls are produced in that country.
FOOTNOTES
[1502] The principal works in which information may be found on this subject, are Perrault in Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences depuis 1666 jusqu’à 1699.—Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, ii. p. 726.—Buffon, Hist. Nat.—Pallas, Spicilegia Zoologica, fascic. iv. p. 10.—Pennant, in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxxi. part i. p. 72.—Pennant’s Arctic Zoology, vol. ii.—Miscellanies by Daines Barrington. London, 1781, 4to, p. 127.
[1503] Athenæus, Deip. lib. xiv. p. 655. Most of those passages of the ancients in which this fowl is mentioned have been collected by Gesner, in his Histor. Avium, p. 461, and by Aldrovandus in his Ornithologia, lib. xiii. p. 18. When we consider the feathers as delineated by Perrault, we shall find the comparison of Clytus more intelligible than it has appeared to many commentators.
[1504] Plin. Strabo. The following passage of the Periplus Scylacis, p. 122, which I have never found cited in the history of the meleagrides, is worthy of remark. This geographer, speaking of a lake in the Carthaginian marshes, says, “Circa lacum nascitur arundo, cyperus, stœbe et juncus. Ibi meleagrides aves sunt; alibi vero nusquam nisi inde exportatæ.”