Plate I. Male. Plate VI. Female and Young.
Tail with eighteen feathers. Male with a long tuft of bristles pendent
from the lower part of the neck in front; frontal wattle blue and red,
skin of the neck and head of various tints of blue and purple,
caruncles bright red, changing to blue, legs purplish-red; upper parts
brownish-yellow, with metallic lustre, changing to deep purple,
fire-red, and bronzed green, the truncated tips of the feathers
margined with velvet-black; on the hind parts, the black bands much
broader; upper tail-coverts deep chestnut, glossed; wing-coverts like
the back, excepting the primary coverts, which, with the quills, are
dusky, transversely banded with white, the inner minutely mottled with
dusky, on a light brownish-red ground; tail-feathers chestnut-red,
narrowly barred and minutely dotted with black, a subternal broad band
of black, the tips plain chestnut; lower parts like the upper, the
tuft of bristles black. Female considerably inferior in size, with the
wattles much smaller, the tuft on the breast comparatively small, and
only in old birds; the colours of the plumage duller, there being
little of the refulgent hues of the male; the lower parts
brownish-black. Young before being fledged, are pale brownish-yellow
above, pale yellowish-grey beneath, the top of the head brighter,
marked in the middle with a longitudinal pale brown band; the back and
wings spotted with brownish-black, excepting the smaller wing-coverts,
which are uniformly dull brown.
_Male_, 49, 68. _Female_, 37, 54.
Breeds from Texas to Massachusetts and Vermont. In the interior to the
Missouri, and thence northward to Michigan. Common. Resident, though
removing to considerable distances in autumn, in quest of food.
Meleagris Gallopavo, Bonap. Syn. p. 122.
Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Bonap. Amer. Orn. v. i. p.
79.
Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Nutt. Man. v. i. p. 630.
Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. i. p. 1,
33; v. v. p. 559.