CHAPTER II

RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME

When America was discovered the wild turkey inhabited the wooded portion of the entire country, from the southern provinces of Canada and southern Maine, south to southern Mexico, and from Arizona, Kansas, and Nebraska, east to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. As the turkey is not a migratory bird in the sense that migration is usually interpreted, and while the range of the _species_ is one of great extent, as might be expected, owing to the operation of the usual causes, a number of _subspecies_ have resulted. At the present time, ornithologists recognize four of these as occurring within the limits of the United States, as set forth in