The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser., 1922-11-24
IS TURK A TURK?
Question Has Never Been Sat-
isfactoriIy Answered.
But Whether American or Asiatic, No
One Has Ever Denied Its
De!ectabIe Flavor.

1.-THE Mystery Of the Turkey" has
been agltating Paris. A learned Arab
Al Antaki-has discovered in An
cient Arabic books written long before
the discovery of America a descrip-
ton of what he thinks must be the
modern turkey-bird-andt the old author
found it in fact in Asia Minor, which
the Turks of his religion had already
conquered. Such a piece of news goes
along well with the conquering of
what we used to call Turkey by Mus
tapha Kemal and, If it were true, he
would be warranted in taking our tur-
key for his own Thanksgiving en-
blem.
French naturalists have started up
at once and give the reasons, which
they say are imperative, why the tur-
key bird is genuine American, in the
woods when Columbus came and In
the Puritan Pilgrims pot. No for
eigners need apply-and, as for the
enigma of the name turkey" what's
In name, anyway? That can be ex-
planned, and so can what the old Arab
said.
This is the sum of the French ar
gument. The very type of all turkeys
is found in Honduras and was fully
described in all his glory-speckled,
with eye spots small, but bright, al
most as those Of the peacock's plu-
mage, with deep-sea blue head and
orange-red dewlaps-35 years after
Columbus first glimpsed America.
Now, the Arab of the Turkish con-
quest uses good deal of literature
to describe what may easily be only
a guinea hen. And he is the only
traveller or writer who ever used Ian
guage that could be even remotely
applied TO our American bird until
the turkey had become domestic
fowl in Europe, after being brought
over from America as a curiosity. The
misfortune was that somehow the Eng
lish baptized him turkey" They got
hold of him very early, with their
usual love of good eating. Perhaps
he was brought over by Cabot, In
which case he would have been one of
our United States or Canadian tur-
keys, but more likely some buccaneer
brought him back from Panama, where
the Christians" were breeding him
as a domestic fowl even before Span
ish Oviedo described him so scien-
tif1cally.
Point Made by the French.
= HE makes a wheel of his tall
says Oviedo, to distinguish him from
other birds of this wonderful world
that resemble him in other ways
but, he hastens to a6d. ''his tail Is not
as beautiful as that Of our Spanish
peacocks."
Here the French make their point.
The Romans were as great and curious
eaters as the English, and they ate
peacocks and brought back from Col
chis in Asia Minor Tor Turkey in
Asia) pheasants for the sake of eat
ing them, and their Latin books speak
of them with all particulars. Who
can imagine they would have passed
by the turkey, which is no end better
eating than the most golden pheasant?
They never speak of any bird like
him-but they know the guinea hen
which the old Arab seems to have
meant to describe.
Now here the mistake of early nat
uralists in Europe comes in. They
never tried to reason out why in the
world the English called the bird a
turkey" but they must have been
Influenced by the name-and they de-
cided to call 1t "Meleagris Gallopavo'
"a three-barreled blunder which was
intended to mean a combination of
guinea hen, Gallo cock and peacock.
This was the bright idea of the great
LiEnaeus who cannot have seen one
or eaten one in his native Sweden.
Perhaps he was Influenced by the
unlucky common names for the glori-
Gus bird. The English called him
turkey" but the French call him
"dfndon," which means Indian bird.
New, at the beginning, America was
universally spoken of as india" and