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.)
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