[321] Neither the Whooping Crane (Grus Americana) nor the Sandhill Crane (Grus pratensis) is now found in New England. The latter is probably the species referred to here. Our large Heron (Ardea herodias) is often called Crane by country people, but it does not eat corn, and “in a dishe” would hardly be considered “a goodly bird.”
[322] The Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallipavo Americana) is mentioned by all the early writers as an abundant bird; but it disappeared almost as rapidly as the Indians, before the encroachment of the white settlers. Peabody, writing in 1839 (Report on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds of Massachusetts, p. 352), says: “It is still found occasionally in our western mountains, and also on the Holyoke range, where some are taken every year.” Its total extinction probably occurred only a few years later.
[323] Probably an exaggeration, although Audubon mentions one that weighed thirty-six pounds; the ordinary weight of the full-grown male is from fifteen to twenty pounds, a gobbler weighing twenty-five pounds being an unusually large bird. Yet Morton’s statement is fully borne out by other contemporary authorities. Wood says, “The Turky is a very large bird, of a blacke colour, yet white in flesh; much bigger then our English Turky. He hath the use of his long legs so ready, that he can runne as fast as a Dogge, and flye as well as a Goose: of these sometimes there will be forty, three-score and an hundred of a flocke, sometimes more and sometimes lesse; their feeding is Acorns, Hawes, and Berries, some of them get a haunt to frequent our English corne: In Winter when the Snow covers the ground, they resort to the Sea-shore to looke for Shrimps, and such small fishes at low tides. Such as love Turkie hunting must follow it in Winter after a new falne Snow, when he may follow them by their tracts; some have killed ten or a dozen in halfe a day; if they can be found towards an evening, and watched where they peirch, if one came about ten or eleaven of the clocke, he may shoote as often as he will, they will sit, unlesse they be slenderly wounded. These Turkies remain all the yeare long. The price of a good Turkie cocke is foure shillings: and he is well worth it, for he may be in weight forty pound; a Hen two shillings.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 24.) So also Josselyn: “I have heard several credible persons affirm, they have seen Turkie Cocks that have weighed forty, yea sixty pounds; but out of my personal experimental knowledge I can assure you, that I have eaten my share of a Turkie Cock, that when he was pull’d and garbidg’d, weighed thirty pound.” He adds, however, that even then [1670] “the English and the Indians having now destroyed the breed, so that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild Turkie in the Woods.” (New England’s Rarities, p. 9.) See also Two Voyages, p. 99, where the same writer says: “If you would preserve the young Chickens alive, you must give them no water, for if they come to have their fill of water, they will drop away strangely, and you will never be able to rear any of them.” John Clayton, in his Letter to the Royal Society [1688], says of Virginia: “There be wild Turkies extream large; they talk of Turkies that have been kill’d, that have weigh’d betwixt 50 and 60 Pound weight; the largest that ever I saw, weigh’d something better than 38 Pound.” (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 12, p. 30.) Williams, in his Virginia [1650], speaks of “infinites of wilde Turkeyes, which have been knowne to weigh fifty pound weight, ordinarily forty.” (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 11, p. 12.) See also Strachey’s Historie, p. 125; Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 253.
[324] In regard to this expression Mr. Trumbull writes: “Metawna is mittànnug (R. Williams), muttannunk (Eliot),—Englished by ‘a thousand;’ but to the Indians less definite, ‘a great many,’ more than he could count. Neent is possibly a misprint for necut (nequt, Eliot), ‘one,’—but, more likely, stands for ‘I have,’ or its equivalent, ‘there is to me.’ Roger Williams (p. 164) puts the numeral first, nneesnneánna, ‘I have killed two,’—shwinneánna, [‘I have killed] three,’” &c.
[325] The Pheasant of Morton and other early writers has been supposed by ornithologists to be the Prairie Hen or Pinnated Grouse (Cupidonia cupido), a species which, however, has dark not “white flesh,”—“formerly ... so common on the ancient busky site of the city of Boston, that laboring people or servants stipulated with their employers, not to have the Heath-Hen brought to table oftener then a few times in the week.” (Nuttall’s Ornithology, vol. i. p. 800.) There is good evidence that this bird once ranged over a large part of Southern New England; it is still found on Martha’s Vineyard, where it is carefully protected and is not uncommon. Elsewhere it does not now occur much to the eastward of Illinois.
[326] The Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbella).
[327] The American Partridge, Quail, or Bob White (Ortyx Virginiana).
[328] Of doubtful application. Our Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris) is the nearest North American ally of the English Skylark, but it is so differently colored that Morton probably had in mind some other species, perhaps the Titlark (Anthus ludovicianus).
[329] Three species of Crows are found in New England: the Raven (Corvus carnivorus), now confined to the northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont; the Common Crow (Corvus Americanus); and the Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus), which occasionally wanders to Massachusetts from its true home in the Middle and Southern States. The latter may have been the Rook. “Kight” is a dubious appellation, possibly referring to the Swallow-tailed Kite (Nauclerus furcatus), now a rare straggler from the South, but formerly, as some ornithologists believe, of regular occurrence in New England.
[330] The descriptions given for these Hawks are too vague to be of much use in determining species. A clew is often furnished by familiar terms of falconry, which, we may assume, would be naturally applied to American representatives of Old World forms. Morton, however, uses these terms very loosely, or, perhaps, with a regard to fine distinctions of meaning not now understood. In such a case nothing can be done beyond pointing out their accepted significance and probable application.