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WILD TURKEY.

Tue turkey, so well known a bird in its domesticated
state in our farm yards, is a native of America, and is
believed to have been imported into Europe in the ,
beginning of the sixteenth century. It obtained the
name of ‘turkey’ from having been believed at the time
to have come from that country; having, perhaps, as is
imagined, been confounded with the Guinea fowls, which
were naturalized in England about the same time, from
the- Levant.

Oviedo, in his “Natural History of the Indies,” by
which name America was called at first when newly
discovered, speaks of it as a kind of peacock. Audubon,
the great naturalist, and also the Prince of Canino give
fall and detailed accounts of the turkey to the following
effect: —“The native country of this species extends from
the north-western territory of the United States to the
Isthmus of Panama, south of which it is not to be found.
It was formerly common in many parts of Canada, as
well as in districts within the States, whence it has been
driven by the advance of colonization, and must now be
sought for in remoter localities. The unsettled parts of
the states of Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, an
immense country to the north-west of these districts,
and the vast regions drained by the rivers, from their
confluence to Louisiana, including the wooded parts of
Arkansas, according to Audubon, are the most abun-
dantly supplicd with this magnificent lird. The wild
turkey is to a certain degree, migratory in its habits,
and associates in flocks during the autumn and winter