Show none should blame aiding bird for mental incapacity for all of his efforts go toward th development of flavor DO played a brilliant pirt in history even before h discovered him along with mexico in 1518 long before that he had been worshiped bi azteca aztecs later when his religious vogue was past he was given honorable men alon as a bird of honor at the marriage banquet of a ang so viand wis he considered when first introduced to europe that in a constitution set forth by cramner in 1511 Is named as one of the greater fowls of which an vas to have but one in a aishe cut he speedily multiplied to such an chent ahat no later than 1555 two turkeys and four turkey chicks at a feast of the at arms ip london turkeys at that period were mentioned in connection with cranes and swans as important and rich items of n banquet A little later in 1573 atre used on alie tables of english husbandmen tor the christmas tast in the meantime they were more than plentiful in their home land where 11 continued to sell for about six cents apiece as late as the nineteenth centar lor six cents in those good old davs a turkey weighing about twelve pounds could be bought by a good shopper it the family needed n turkey weighing twenty five or thirty pounds it was necessary to pay as rabih as n quarter but it must be remembered that six cents in ahoe davs counted a good deal more than it does in this the lurkin tint the was probably cither the mexican mid tinker which Is known by the white touches on its tall covers and quills r more the turkey of honduras and other parts of south america whose brill lint plumage spotted almost as gloriously with vivid colors ns n peacock somehow allies it with tint vivid nelv the turkey which strolled out of the forests of sew england and auml hed so marcellous marvellous marv ellous a banquet for our puritan forefathers was a handsomer I 1 ird than eliat of mexico in the opinion of some lovers of beauty hut not w a one as the honduras turkey the american wild luikey which reilly belongs to thanksgiving was iha arh american wild turkey found throughout the eastern united states and canada scientifically it Is known as the americana its is black shaded with bronze in the rays of the sun the bird gleams 14 a beautiful harmony of black copper gold and bronze and the turkey ikes hie rays of alie sum he hates damp weather not alone because it Is bad for his health but because it obscures his beauty it Is generald genera lh hellord helloed at present that all ahe turkeys of the world have descended from the three forms known as the rth american bird which has been described the mexican bird and the bird the turkey which was first introduced into europe anny have been car ried then bv the spaniards from mexico or the jesuits may have taken it across the waters from one of their scattered stations in the great foods of canada iii any event one of its representatives figured at the ardlan banquet of charles IX and was regarded as of sufficient importance 0 o be mentioned in the reports of that festivity alie mexican 1 the wild bird of mexico which also came over the line into the southern part of the united states Gall Is the name that Is generally employed to describe this turi ey it Is somewhat bporter in alie shank th in the northern species its body color Is a metallic hack shaded with brodye ahls Is thought to be the species that the early nisi acre buck to spain and england alie white tips of its plumage clo have suggested that it Is to this bird rather thin to the wild turkey of ith america that most of alie domestic fowls owe their origin the Oct llata which Is smaller than alie others his a bare head and neck iti body plumage Is bronze and green banded with told bianze and varied with spots or eyes of brilliant colors blue red and black when its origin Is admittedly purely alie turi ev la called the occidental a subject hat ins puzzled ganv there are several bv thoe win have delved deeply into this problem and one given reasons f lt privileged to take his choice in the first place it Is stated that the turkey originally supposed to have come from asia thus at n time when a great was of ten llory on the asiatic continent was called turkey the origin another speculative chron bird derived its ame mme from its supposed that the indians called alie bird florkee and that from tills its milci name wis created then again it Is somewhat generally believed common the bird named itself by its peculiar utterances which are translated trin slated as that turk burket again still more subtle philosophers have traced the turk of alie bird to its kinship in the matter of polygamous habits with the naming the water certainly no turbaned subject of the sultan even in over turks were considered an article of the true religion was alie dav s v hen hares harems of his privileges in this regard than the turkey cock of more ever time supposed to have come forest furneis were ilso at one barncard bar nvard or alie errors in their scientific confused with guineas from africa ind they were ere duo lo 10 this confusion naming in after making their first the pilgrims decreed that hen three das festival which was really the first thanks be n there turkeys had become known as a delicious food and chev living wild of the feast the old pioneers so badly off the boya as we have been led to imagine for although they in frome Is of the joas of tinned meats and vegetables vee tables and cold storage deprived lilt were so that it Is ri corded it was and similar bread another chronicler sets forth the fact refer to th m as cu breast to of the wild turkey when cooked in butter was estic med by that the the explorers hut in spite of abundance tur keas catti were the epicures epi regarded cures afung with favor even bv the red men if one Is to judge by the which chev uttered follow 0 O ing great nayer being I 1 thank thee that I 1 have obtained the use of my legs able to walk about and kill turkeys I 1 that am neaon ao bot alone in carev that the bird was regarded with it was an edible isaacke Isa acDe Kasl tries in writes a description of eccli favor as the drukey and details the method ot hunting them in the new bethel lands there are ilso verv large turkeys running wild they have very long legs and run ao extraordinarily fast that generally we anke savages when we go to hunt them rr when one lias deprived them of the power 0 flying they vet run so fast that we cannot catch them unless their legs are hurt also turkey s hav e been called greatest game bird of this country and the methods of taking them hive man john hunter who vaa captured by the indians ind spent some time in captivity in his memoirs written in 1824 tells how the indians mada decoy bird from the skin of a turkey fol lowed the tracks until they ame upon a flock and then partially decoy and imitating the gobbling noise made by the cock drew oft first one and then another of the flock who being socially inclined came along lo 10 investigate the new comers among the indian the children were expected to kill with their blow guns these hollow beds teds in which arrows were placed aad blown out will such force chrt being directed at the eve of the creature ahey often brought him down children young eight years were successful at this bort of shooting adrian van der donch rays aliat lurkers were sometimes by dogs in the snow during the seventeenth century but generally they were shot at night from trees chev slept in the trees in large flocks and often selected the same spot many in succession at other times the indians would lay roots of which the were fond in small streams and take the birds as they were in the act of getting the roots in virginia the trap or pea was much used this trap was built in the forest cind leading to it was a long train of corn the trap was a pimple abali built of logs laid one cpru another and having rough rails laid acres the fop was a trench dug under the lowest logs which fenced in the pen in hit corn was battered catt ered and the turkey following tin trill of this foi some cf oft would finally come to the trend velch seemed to be quite pi evidentially strewn with an unusually rich supply he followed he great bright path of rich food to his destruction the turkeys lack of intelligence when it comes to penning him up Is one of the reasons vav a ewt any americans have not been in accord with benjamin frank idea hat the and not the eagle should be the bird of our country A alie shooting of turkeys in the latter halt of the nineteenth century in steals of alie use of the hollow bone of the s wing which in alie morth of an expert can be made to reproduce per factly the piling sound of tha turkey hen sometimes also turkeys were hunted on horseback in according to an old writer this was not uncommon he 1 hough we galloped our horses we could not overtake them the turi evs ti though chev run aca h two hundred and twenty bards before they took flight the constant practice of our forefathers in shooting game developed a great ganv fine tu key shots and it is recorded that in the latter half of the seventeenth century a min was thought a bad shot if he missed the a head of a wild on top of the highest tree with a single ball to pot hunting and to the practice of luring the turkeys by imitating the call of he hen in the springe sylvester D judd of the biological curvey of the united states of agriculture largely attributes the tx termination of the wild turl ey in many parts of the united states where formerly for meily it was especially abundant alun dant trapping the turkeys in pens also helped along the extermination although the Is generally speaking not a particularly hardy bird being subject to various forms of indigestion etc he Is varied in his diet and usually las n good appetite some of the things which the wild turkey likes b st end which the domesticated bird will by no means scorn are grass hoppers crickets locusts tadpoles small lizards garden seeds and snails ont turkey velch was examined bi a scientist was found to have partaker partaken par taken of a meal including the follon ing viands one harvest spider one centipede one thousand legs one ichneumon Ich neuman fly two yellow jackets one grasshopper three katydids wild cherries grapes berries of d awood and the sorghum two chestnuts twenty five whole acorns n few alder calkins and five hundred seeds of tick trefoil the domestic tur keib habit of hunting grasshoppers and worming tobacco shows that his delight in he primitive pleasures of the table has not altered in his more carefully provided for existence the chicks both of the wild and the domestic turkey are delicate and especially must chev be protected during the damp weather audubon says that the mother bird among the wild s thoroughly understands the dalic aci of her offspring and that when it Is wet she feeds the chicks buds from the depice huh with medicinal intent exactly as the mother of a brood of prescribes doses of quinine when influenza has taken the family in its clutches As soon ns th oung birds can fly well enough to tal e their place on the roost with their li others the most delicate period of childhood what might be called the teething stage Is thought to be over rut to a successful turl ev farmer the boults are three months old bufore they cin c in bo aught anything they are then taught that they should roost high so as lo 10 kap out of the dav of night prowlers turkeys so much of hilr wild nature that they do not like ro inside n house and indeed do not care even for artificial perches ahen pos filble the greatly all trees as n ro place to any roost that has been for them this characteristic renders them especially fasy victims for night raiders in addition to the human desperadoes of tills description there UP the coyotes and hawks always to be guarded against in some parts atthe country in addition to illnesses which come from digestive disorders colds the terrible booi raci of alaci heads etc and the depredations of the night raider the turl e has to consider also the feuds among lie members of his flock which frequently rago high the careful turkey bandier has found it possible to conserve his birds and make a large profit from them A woman turkey rancher who has had good experience in the business lost in one season only twelve birds out of a flock of 1500 at first the young turkeys are fed on breid and milk hard boiled yolk of egg and perhaps some chopped alfalfa later they are fed cracked grain but us r they able to take to the range it Is no longer necessary to feed them I 1 he range supplies all that they need both green and dry and liappa Is the householder who Is able to purchase for his table s whose habitat has been an oak forest nothing Is more delicious than a turkey which hns fed freely on acorns although there are ganv great turkey ranches and whole communities which ahe principally upon the raising of turkeys for market such as caera eliose annual turl cv tade preceding thanksgiving includes thousands of s bound for the new york markets as n rule turkeys are raised la mall groups on farm which are interested in other commodities rhey are often foule dependence of th farmer s w ife for pocket money throughout the vear and ganv a farmers daughter also has been able to make a shining appearance n her world of fashion principally through the successful market ing of the guiley brood oil the t farms of the united states there were according to careful f some deais ago only turkeys texas led among the baates producing the other states which were largo producers were missouri illinois iowa ohio and indiana the state of rhode island noted as it Is for its turkeys only but the quality of alie inland always has been fcc ellent and chev usually bring prices vastly in excess of those aiom other parts of the country and that ought to be enough about a to get up a pretty good appetite for thursday s dinner I 1 i i 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