Oviedo, a Spanish writer, speaks of it as a kind of peacock that was once very abundant in New Spain, as Mexico was called in his day, and which had already, in 1526, been transported in a domestic condition to the West Indies and the Spanish Main, where it was maintained by the Christian settlers.
Among the luxuries possessed by Montezuma, the proud, dignified, semi-cultured monarch of the Aztecs, was one of the most extensive zoölogical gardens on record. Representatives of nearly all of the animals of the country over which he reigned, as well as others, brought at great expense from long distances, were to be found within its walls. Turkeys, it is said, were daily supplied in large numbers to the carnivores of his menagerie.
Respecting the time when this bird was first reclaimed in Mexico from its wild state, there can be no idea. Probably it has been domesticated from remote antiquity. No doubt exists, however, as to its being reared by the Mexicans at the period of the Spanish Conquest, and of its subsequent introduction into Europe, either from New Spain, or from the West India Islands, into which it had been previously carried.
MEXICAN WILD TURKEY.
Ancestor of the Domestic Bird.
Audubon, one of the early pioneers of American ornithology, supposed our common barnyard Turkey to have originated in the wild bird so prevalent in the eastern half of our great country. But it has always been a matter of surprise to naturalists that the latter did not assimilate, by interbreeding and reversion, more intimately in color and habits to the domestic form. No suspicion, until recently, appears to have been entertained that the two birds might belong to different species. That such is the true status of things, there is now no reasonable doubt.
Our common Wild Turkey, once so plentiful in Pennsylvania, is now restricted to the more eastern and southern portions of the United States, while in the parts of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona adjacent to the southern Rocky Mountains, and thence stretching southward along the eastern slope of Mexico as far as Orizaba, there exists another form, essentially different, which, by way of distinction, has been popularly called the Mexican Turkey. It is from this species, and not from the other, as has been erroneously supposed and taught, that the domestic fowl has been derived. Even in this enlightened age, with so many ornithological teachers on every hand, we see this mistake propagated by such as know better, and whose business it is, or ought to be, to have a care that truth shall prevail.
Between the wild bird of Eastern North America and the Mexican and typical barnyard fowls there are differences which must be apparent even to the most superficial observer. The extremities of the tail-feathers, as well as the feathers overlying the base of the tail, are in the latter creamy or fulvous white, while in the former they are of a decided chestnut-brown color. Other characteristics exist, but these only become evident to the keen-sighted ornithologist.
The difficulty experienced in establishing a cross between our wild and tame birds, shows that they are not as closely related as was once supposed. Did a near kinship subsist, interbreeding could most readily be accomplished. With the Mexican Turkey, matters are otherwise. That a relationship does obtain between the domestic bird and the latter—its wild original—there can be no question, as specimens of the naturalized species are often met with which are nearly the counterpart of its Mexican progenitor, differing only in the greater development of the fatty appendages of the head and neck, differences which may be accounted for as the effects of the influences to which the birds have been subjected by man. No well-authenticated instances of similar reversions to our once familiar Eastern bird have been known to occur, which would necessarily have been the case had they been so closely related as was once maintained.
Meleagris Mexicana affects sparsely-overgrown savannas, and occupies in Mexico the region of the oaks and the coast—the tierra caliente of geographers. It is a very wary bird, and lives in families. Insects of divers kinds, but chiefly of a coleopterous character, as well as the seeds of grasses, constitute its bill of fare. When searching for food, especially in perilous localities, a sentinel is stationed on the outskirts of the flock, whose duty it is to announce the presence of danger. Flight is seldom resorted to at such times, for these birds, being fleeter of foot than the swiftest dog, are able to escape their enemies by running.