The Turkey, so far as we know, was first described by Oviedo in his Sumario de la Natural Historia de las Indias[1] (cap. xxxvi.), said to have been published in 1527. He, not unnaturally, includes both Curassows and Turkeys in one category, calling both "Pavos" (Peafowls); but he carefully distinguishes between them, pointing out among other things that the latter make a wheel (hacen la rueda) of their tail, though this was not so grand or so beautiful as that of the Spanish "Pavo," and he gives a faithful though short description of the Turkey, The chief point of interest in his account is that he speaks of the species having been already taken from New Spain (Mexico) to the islands and to Castilla del Oro (Darien), where it bred in a domestic state among the Christians. Much labour has been given by various naturalists to ascertain the date of its introduction to Europe, to which we can at present only make an approximate attempt;[2] but after all that has been written it is plain that evidence concurs to show that the bird was established in Europe by 1530—a very short time to have elapsed since it became known to the Spaniards, which could hardly have been before 1518, when Mexico was discovered. The possibility that it had been brought to England by Cabot or some of his successors earlier in the century is not to be overlooked, and reasons will presently be assigned for supposing that one of the breeds of English Turkeys may have had a northern origin;[3] but the often quoted distich first given in Baker's Chronicle (p. 298), asserting that Turkeys came into England in the same year—and that year by reputation 1524—as carps, pickerels, and other commodities, is wholly untrustworthy, for we know that both these fishes lived in the country long before, if indeed they were not indigenous to it. The earliest documentary evidence of its existence in England is a "constitution" set forth by Cranmer in 1541, which Hearne first printed (Leland's Collectanea, ed. 2, vi. p. 38). This names "Turkey-cocke" as one of "the greater fowles" of which an ecclesiastic was to have "but one in a dishe," and its association with the Crane and Swan precludes the likelihood of any confusion with the Guinea-Fowl. Moreover the comparatively low price of the two Turkeys and four Turkey-chicks served at a feast of the serjeants-at-law in 1555 (Dugdale, Origines, p. 135) points to their having become by that time abundant, and indeed by 1573 Tusser bears witness to the part they had already begun to play in "Christmas husbandlie fare." In 1555 both sexes were characteristically figured by Belon (Oyseaux, p. 249), as was the cock by Gesner in the same year, and these are the earliest representations of the bird known to exist.
There is no need to describe here a bird so familiar and in these days so widely distributed. As a denizen of our poultry - yards (see Poultry vol. xix. p. 646) there are at least two distinct breeds, though crosses between them are much commoner than purely-bred examples of either. That known as the Norfolk breed is the taller of the two, and is said to be the more hardy. Its plumage is almost entirely black, with very little lustre, but the feathers of the tail and some of those of the back have a brownish tip. The chicks also are black, with occasionally white patches on the head. The other breed, called the Cambridgeshire, is much more variegated in colour, and some parts of the plumage have a bright metallic gloss, while the chicks are generally mottled with brownish grey. White, pied, and buff Turkeys are also often seen, and if care be taken they are commonly found to "breed true." Occasionally Turkeys, the cocks especially, occur with a top-knot of feathers, and one of them was figured by Albin in 1738. It has been suggested with some appearance of probability that the Norfolk breed may be descended from the northern form, Meleagris gallopavo or americana, while the Cambridgeshire breed may spring from the southern form, the M. mexicana of Gould (Proc. Zool. Society, 1856, p. 61), which indeed it very much resembles, especially in having its tail-coverts and quills tipped with white or light ochreous, points that recent North-American ornithologists rely upon as distinctive of this form. If this supposition be tine, there would be reason to believe in the double introduction of the bird into England at least, as already hinted, but positive information is almost wholly wanting.[4] The northern form of wild Turkey, whose habits have been described in much detail by all the chief writers on North- American birds, is now extinct in the settled parts of Canada and the eastern States of the Union, where it was once so numerous; and in Mexico the southern form, which would seem to have been never abundant since the conquest, has been for many years rare. Further to the south, on the borders of Guatemala and British Honduras, there exists a perfectly distinct species, M. ocellata, whose plumage almost vies with that of a Peacock in splendour, while the bare skin which covers the head is of a deep blue studded with orange caruncles (Proc. Zool. Society, 1861, pi. xl.).
The genus Meleagris is considered to enter into the Family Phasianidæ, in which it forms a Subfamily Meleagrinæ, peculiar to North and Central America. The fossil remains of three species have been described by Prof. Marsh—one from the Miocene of Colorado, and two, one much taller and the other smaller than the existing species, from the Post-Pliocene of New Jersey. Both the last had proportionally long and slender legs.(a. n.)
TURKS. The use of the name "Turks" has never been limited in a clear and definite way from the time of the Byzantine authors to the present day. To the former, as also to the Arabs, it has a collective sense like Scythians or Huns;[5] at the present day we are wont to restrict the name to the Osmanli Turks, though they themselves refuse to be called Turks, having, as they hold, ceased to be such in becoming imbued with Arabo-Persian culture. On the other hand, when we speak of Uigurs and Tatars, we mean tribes who style themselves Turks and really are such. It is only by the aid of historical and linguistical evidence that we can determine the true limits of the Turkish name.
Origin.The national Turkish traditions, preserved by the Persian historians Rashid ed-Dln and Jowaini from Uigurian books which are now lost, point to the region watered by the river Selenga and its affluents, the Orkhon and the Tugila, as the primitive seat of the Turkish people. Rashid ed-Dln combines this tradition with that of the Mohammedan descendants of Oghuz, who, in accordance with Moslem traditions, derive the whole Turkish stock from Japhet, the son of Noah, or more accurately from Turk, the son of the former (Yafiz-oglan), and pretend that he pitched his tents in the vicinity of Lake Issyk-kul (in Semiryetchensk). Ethnological affinities. But, though Turkish tribes did wander so far to the west, and even farther, in remote antiquity, it seems pretty certain that the Uigurian tradition has preserved the memory of the true origin of the race, that Turks and Mongols were originally different stems of a single people, and that these two members of the
Ural-Altaic (q.v.) family were more closely related to each other than to any other member of the same family (Finnollgrians, Samoyedes, Tungus-Manchus). The evidence for this rests, not on the ethnological system of Rashid ed-Dln, though it affords a secondary argument, but on the in dubitable affinity of the Mongolian and Turkish languages and the similarity of the ethnological characters of the two races. Here, of course, we do not argue from the Osmanlis, who have lost all their original race-characters and have become "Caucasians" of the best type, but rather, for in stance, from the Kirghiz, who are considered as the typical Turks of the present day, and are described by Ujfalvy as being midway between the Mongol and the Caucasian. We must now turn our attention to the wanderings of the Turks and their subsequent fate, a rather difficult task,
- ↑ Purchas (Pilgrimes, iii. p. 995) in 1625 quoted both from this and from the same author's Hystoria General, said to have been published a few years later. Oviedo's earlier work is only known to the present writer by the reprint of 1852.
- ↑ The bibliography of the Turkey is so large that there is here no room to name the various works that might be cited. Recent research has failed to add anything of importance to what has been said on this point by Buffon (Oiseaux, ii. pp. 132-162), Pennant (Arctic Zoology, pp. 291-300),—an admirable summary, and Broderip (Zoological Recreations, pp. 120-137)—not that all their statements can be wholly accepted. Barrington's essay (Miscellanies, pp. 127-151), to prove that the bird was known before the discovery of America and was transported thither, is an ingenious piece of special pleading which his friend Pennant did him the real kindness of ignoring.
- ↑ In 1672 Josselin (New England's Rarities, p. 9) speaks of the settlers bringing up "great store of the wild kind" of Turkeys, "which remain about their houses as tame as ours in England." The bird was evidently plentiful down to the very seaboard of Massachusetts, and it is not likely to have been domesticated by the Indian tribes there, as, according to Hernandez, it seems to have been by the Mexicans. It was probably easy to take alive, and, as we know, capable of enduring the voyage to England.
- ↑ The results of a comparison of the skulls of wild and domesticated Turkeys are given by Dr Shufeldt in Journ. of Comp. Medicine and Surgery, July 1887.
- ↑ Constantine Porphyrogenitus calls the Magyars Turks, even in contradistinction to the truly Turkish Petchenegs.
