833. BIRDS, Turkey.—
I suppose the
opinion to be universal that the turkey is a
native of America. Nobody, as far as I know,
has ever contradicted it but Daines Barrington;
and the arguments he produces are such as
none but a head, entangled and kinked as his
is, would ever have urged. Before the discovery
of America, no such bird is mentioned
in a single author, all those quoted by Barrington,
by description referring to the crane,
hen, pheasant, or peacock; but the book of
every traveller, who came to America soon
after its discovery, is full of accounts of the
turkey and its abundance; and immediately
after that discovery we find the turkey served
up at the feasts of Europe, as their most extraordinary
rarity.—
To Dr. Hugh Williamson. Washington ed. iv, 346.
Ford ed., vii, 480.
(W.
Jan. 1801)
