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.