Tail with eighteen feathers. Male with a long tuft of bristles pendent from the lower part of the neck in front; frontal wattle blue and red, skin of the neck and head of various tints of blue and purple, caruncles bright red, changing to blue, legs purplish-red; upper parts brownish-yellow, with metallic lustre, changing to deep purple, fire-red, and bronzed green, the truncated tips of the feathers margined with velvet-black; on the hind parts, the black bands much broader; upper tail-coverts deep chestnut, glossed; wing-coverts like the back, excepting the primary coverts, which, with the quills, are dusky, transversely banded with white, the inner minutely mottled with dusky, on a light brownish-red ground; tail-feathers chestnut-red, narrowly barred and minutely dotted with black, a subternal broad band of black, the tips plain chestnut; lower parts like the upper, the tuft of bristles black. Female considerably inferior in size, with the wattles much smaller, the tuft on the breast comparatively small, and only in old birds; the colours of the plumage duller, there being little of the refulgent hues of the male; the lower parts brownish-black. Young before being fledged, are pale brownish-yellow above, pale yellowish-grey beneath, the top of the head brighter, marked in the middle with a longitudinal pale brown band; the back and wings spotted with brownish-black, excepting the smaller wing-coverts, which are uniformly dull brown. _Male_, 49, 68. _Female_, 37, 54. Breeds from Texas to Massachusetts and Vermont. In the interior to the Missouri, and thence northward to Michigan. Common. Resident, though removing to considerable distances in autumn, in quest of food. Meleagris Gallopavo, Bonap. Syn. p. 122. Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Bonap. Amer. Orn. v. i. p. 79. Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Nutt. Man. v. i. p. 630. Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. i. p. 1, 33; v. v. p. 559. FAMILY XXXI. PERDICINÆ. PARTRIDGES.