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William Wood, writing from
Massachusetts in the 1630s, described the native American wild
turkey :
| The Turkey is a very large Bird, of a blacke colour, yet white
in flesh; much bigger than our English Turkey. He hath the use of his long legs so ready,
that he can runne as fast as a Dogge, and flye as well as a goose : of these sometimes
there will be forty, threescore, and a hundred of a flocke, sometimes more and sometimes
lesse; their feeding is Acorns, Hawes, and Berries, some of them get a haunt to frequent
our English corne. |
French gastronome Brillat-Savarin
enthused about a wild turkey hunt during a trip to America in 1794 :
| Our start led us into the midst of a flock of wild turkeys.
They arose, one after another, in quick noisy flight. I fired at it through a break
in the woods, and it fell. During the whole of our trip homeward, I was
considering how best I should cook my turkey… |
| As the last morsel of turkey disappeared, there
arose from the whole table the words: "Very good!
Exceedingly good! Oh! dear sir, what a glorious bit!" |
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In the 1600s, the wild turkey was a
very common bird through the eastern two-thirds of the United
States. By 1900, however, hunting and the destruction of their natural woodland habitat
had pushed the wild turkey to the brink of extinction. Protected now by strict laws and
modern game-management programs, the wild turkey has made a spectacular comeback.
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