The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1921-12-13
MEXICO THE HOME OF
DOMESTIC TURKEY
FIRST DISCOVERED BY SPAN
IARDS. NOT DESCENDANT
OF WILD GAME.

three feasting holidays come close to-
gether almost everyone thinks OF tur-
kew. which also took an important
part in the first Thanksgiving Of the
Puritans, the founders of Thanksgiv
ing as we know it today. Little is
known of the early history of the do
nestle turkey. Writers of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries seem to have
been ignorant about it, and to have re-
garded it as the guinea fowl or pm
toda of the ancients, mistake which
was not cleared up until the middle
OF the last century, says writers IN
the New York Sun.
The name it now bears, and which it
received in England where it is reput-
ed to have been introduced in 154l
was given it from the supposition that
it came originally from Turkey. AS far
back as 1873 we read of it as having
been the Christmas fare OF the sturdy
British yeomanry.
Plentiful Among Aztecs.
Ovedo. a Spanish writer, speaks OF
it as a kind OF peacock once abundant
in New Spain, as Mexico was called
in his dav, and which had already i'll
1926 been transported in domestic con-
dition to the West Indies and the
Spanish Main, where it was maintain
ed by the Christian settlers.
Among the Injuries possessed by
Montezuma, the proud, dignified semi
cultured monarch Of the Aztecs, was
one of the most extensive geological
gardens on record Turkeys, it is stat
ed were daily supplied in large num-
bers to his menagerie.
Respecting the time when this bird
was first reclaimed from its wild state
there can be no idea. Probably it has
been domesticated from remote antiq-
uitv. No doubt exists as to its being
reared by the Mexicans at the period
of the Spanish conquest, and OF its
subsequent introduction into Europe
either from New Spain or from the
West Indian Islands.
Came From Mexican Fowl.
Audubon, one of the early pioneers
of American orthodoxy, supposed our
common barnyard turkey to have orig
mated in the wild bird so prevalent IN
the eastern half of the United States.
But it has always been a matter OF
surprise to naturalists that the latter
did not assimilate, by interbreeding
and reversion, more intimately in col
or and habits to the domestic fowl.
No suspicion, until recently, appears
to have been entertained that the two
birds might belong to different species.
Our common wild turkey, once so
plentiful in Pennsylvania and New
York, is now restricted to the more
eastern and southern portions OF the
United States, while in the parts OF
Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and
Arizona. thence stretching southwark
along the eastern slope OF Mexico
there exists another form, essentially
different, which, by way OF distinction,
has been popularity called the Mexican
turkey. 1t is from this species, and not
from the other, as had been errone-
ously supposed, that the domestic fowl
has been derived.
Many Differences Seen.
Between the wild bird of eastern
North America and the Mexican and
typical barnyard fowls there are dif
ferenCes which must be apparent to
the most superficial observer. The eX-
tremities of the tail feathers as we'll
as the feathers everything the base Of
the tail are in the latter creamy or
fulvous white, while in the former they
are OF a decided chestnut brown color.
Other characteristics exist apparent
to the ornithologist.
The difficulty experienced in estab-
fishing a cross between our wild and
tame birds shows that they are not
as closely related as one would sup
pose. Did a near kinship exist inter
breeding could more easily be accom-
plished With the Mexican turkey
matters are otherwise. That a rela-
tionship does exist between the do
mestic bird and the latter there can
be no question, as specimens of the
naturalized species are often met with
which are nearly the counterpart of its
Mexican progenitor, differing only in
the greater development of the fatty
appendages of the head and neck, dif-
ferences which may be accounted for
as the effects of the influences to
which the birds have been subjected
by man. No well authenticated in