So remarkable a bird as the P. nigripennis, when first imported, would have realised a large price; it is therefore improbable that it should have been silently introduced and its history subsequently lost. On the whole the evidence seems to me, as it did to Sir R. Heron, to be decisive in favour of the japanned or black-shouldered breed being a variation, induced by some unknown cause. On this view, the case is the most remarkable one ever recorded of the abrupt appearance of a new form, which so closely resembles a true species that it has deceived one of the most experienced of living ornithologists.
THE TURKEY.
It seems fairly well established by Mr. Gould (8/36. 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' April 8, 1856 page 61. Prof. Baird believes (as quoted in Tegetmeier 'Poultry Book' 1866 page 269) that our turkeys are descended from a West Indian species now extinct. But besides the improbability of a bird having long ago become extinct in these large and luxuriant islands, it appears (as we shall presently see) that the turkey degenerates in India, and this fact indicates that it was not aboriginally an inhabitant of the lowlands of the tropics.), that the turkey, in accordance with the history of its first introduction, is descended from a wild Mexican form, which had been domesticated by the natives before the discovery of America, and which is now generally ranked as a local race, and not as a distinct species. However this may be, the case deserves notice because in the United States wild male turkeys sometimes court the domestic hens, which are descended from the Mexican form, "and are generally received by them with great pleasure." (8/37. Audubon 'Ornithological Biography' volume 1 1831 pages 4- 13; and 'Naturalist's Library' volume 14 'Birds' page 138.) Several accounts have likewise been published of young birds, reared in the United States from the eggs of the wild species, crossing and commingling with the common breed. In England, also, this same species has been kept in several parks; from two of which the Rev. W.D. Fox procured birds, and they crossed freely with the common domestic kind, and during many years afterwards, as he informs me, the turkeys in his neighbourhood clearly showed traces of their crossed parentage. We here have an instance of a domestic race being modified by a cross with a distinct wild race or species. F. Michaux (8/38. F. Michaux 'Travels in N. America' 1802 English translation page 217.) suspected in 1802 that the common domestic turkey was not descended from the United States species alone, but likewise from a southern form, and he went so far as to believe that English and French turkeys differed from having different proportions of the blood of the two parent-forms.
English turkeys are smaller than either wild form. They have not varied in any great degree; but there are some breeds which can be distinguished as Norfolks, Suffolks, Whites, and Copper-coloured (or Cambridge), all of which, if precluded from crossing with other breeds propagate their kind truly. Of these kinds, the most distinct is the small, hardy, dull-black Norfolk turkey, of which the chickens are black, occasionally with white patches about the head. The other breeds scarcely differ except in colour, and their chickens are generally mottled all over with brownish-grey. (8/39. 'Ornamental Poetry' by the Rev. E.S. Dixon 1848 page 34.) The inferior tail-coverts vary in number, and according to a German superstition the hen lays as many eggs as the cock has feathers of this kind. (8/40. Bechstein 'Naturgesch. Deutschlands' b. 3 1793 s. 309.) Albin in 1738, and Temminck within a much later period, describe a beautiful breed, dusky-yellowish, brown above and white beneath, with a large top- knot of soft plumose feather. The spurs of the male were rudimentary. This breed has been for a long time extinct in Europe; but a living specimen has lately been imported from the east coast of Africa, which still retains the top-knot and the same general colouring and rudimentary spurs.