In the adult, the tail is reddish-brown or gray above, with narrow bars of black. Terminally, it is crossed by a slender band of pale ash, which is preceded by a broader one of black, and this by another of an ashy color. The upper parts are ochraceous-brown, and finely mottled with grayish markings. The lower parts are chiefly white, with broad transverse bars of light brown, which are mostly hidden from view upon the abdomen. Upon the shoulders the shafts of the feathers have pale streaks, which also exist in those of the wing-coverts. The upper tail-coverts and the wings are marked with pale, grayish cordate spots, while the lower tail-coverts are pale ochraceous, each being provided with a terminal delta-shaped spot of white, which is bordered with dusky. The neck-tufts are brownish-black. The male measures eighteen inches in length, and has a breadth of wings of seven and two-tenths inches. The tail is about seven inches long. The female is smaller than the latter, with similar colors, but has less prominent tufts upon the sides of the neck. The eggs of this species are usually of a uniform dark-cream color, but sometimes show a nearly pure-white ground. In most specimens there are no markings at all, but when they do occur, are either quite numerous and conspicuous, or few in number, and obscure. They are usually ovoidal, but forms are occasionally met with which are nearly spherical. Their average dimensions, as obtained from specimens from the most diverse localities, are about 1.64 by 1.18 inches. As far as known the species never produces more than a single brood annually, usually nesting, as has been previously stated, on the ground, but instances are recorded by Samuels, where the female has occupied a crow’s nest, or the shelter of some tall broken trunk of a tree. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. Little is known of the early history of the domestic Turkey. Writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries seem to have been ignorant about it, and to have regarded it as the guinea-fowl or pintado of the ancients, a mistake which was not cleared up until the middle of the last century. The name it now bears, and which it received in England, where it is reputed to have been introduced in 1541, was given to it from the supposition that it came originally from Turkey. As far back as 1573 we read of it as having been the Christmas fare of sturdy British yeomanry. Oviedo, a Spanish writer, speaks of it as a kind of peacock that was once very abundant in New Spain, as Mexico was called in his day, and which had already, in 1526, been transported in a domestic condition to the West Indies and the Spanish Main, where it was maintained by the Christian settlers.