Among the luxuries possessed by Montezuma, the proud, dignified, semi-cultured monarch of the Aztecs, was one of the most extensive zoölogical gardens on record. Representatives of nearly all of the animals of the country over which he reigned, as well as others, brought at great expense from long distances, were to be found within its walls. Turkeys, it is said, were daily supplied in large numbers to the carnivores of his menagerie. Respecting the time when this bird was first reclaimed in Mexico from its wild state, there can be no idea. Probably it has been domesticated from remote antiquity. No doubt exists, however, as to its being reared by the Mexicans at the period of the Spanish Conquest, and of its subsequent introduction into Europe, either from New Spain, or from the West India Islands, into which it had been previously carried. [Illustration: MEXICAN WILD TURKEY. Ancestor of the Domestic Bird.] Audubon, one of the early pioneers of American ornithology, supposed our common barnyard Turkey to have originated in the wild bird so prevalent in the eastern half of our great country. But it has always been a matter of surprise to naturalists that the latter did not assimilate, by interbreeding and reversion, more intimately in color and habits to the domestic form. No suspicion, until recently, appears to have been entertained that the two birds might belong to different species. That such is the true _status_ of things, there is now no reasonable doubt. Our common Wild Turkey, once so plentiful in Pennsylvania, is now restricted to the more eastern and southern portions of the United States, while in the parts of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona adjacent to the southern Rocky Mountains, and thence stretching southward along the eastern slope of Mexico as far as Orizaba, there exists another form, essentially different, which, by way of distinction, has been popularly called the Mexican Turkey. It is from this species, and not from the other, as has been erroneously supposed and taught, that the domestic fowl has been derived. Even in this enlightened age, with so many ornithological teachers on every hand, we see this mistake propagated by such as know better, and whose business it is, or ought to be, to have a care that truth shall prevail. Between the wild bird of Eastern North America and the Mexican and typical barnyard fowls there are differences which must be apparent even to the most superficial observer. The extremities of the tail-feathers, as well as the feathers overlying the base of the tail, are in the latter creamy or fulvous white, while in the former they are of a decided chestnut-brown color. Other characteristics exist, but these only become evident to the keen-sighted ornithologist.