Identifier: wildturkeyitshu00mcil (find matches)
Title: The wild turkey and its hunting
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: McIlhenny, Edward Avery, 1872-1949 Jordan, Charles L., d. 1909 Shufeldt, Robert W. (Robert Wilson), 1850-1934
Subjects: Turkeys
Publisher: Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, Page & company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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meet the sternum, there being nocostal ribs for them. They bear uncinate pro-cesses. Next we find four pairs of ribs that articulatewith haemapophyses, and through them with thesternum. There are two free vertebrae betweenthe consolidated dorsal ones and the pelvis; andthe pelvis bears a pair of free ribs, the costal ribsof which articulate by their anterior ends withthe posterior border of the pair of costal ribs infront of them. A kind of long abutment exists at the middlepoint on each, there to accommodate the articu-lation. There are six free tail vertebrae plus along pointed pygostyle. The os furcula is ratherslender, being of a typical V-shaped pattern,with a small and straight hypocleidium. Witha form much as we find it in the fowl, the pelvisis characterized by not having the ilia meet thesacral crista in front. The prepubis is short andstumpy. The external pair of xiphoidal pro-cesses of the sternum are peculiar in that theirposterior ends are strongly bifurcated. .Plate VII
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Fig. 24. Nest of a wild turkey in situ. (M. g. merriami.) Photo by-Mr. F. Stephens, San Diego, California. THE TURKEY HISTORIC 103 In the skeleton of the manus, the pollex meta-carpal projects forward and upward as a ratherconspicuous process. Its phalanx does not beara claw, and on the index metacarpal the indicialprocess is present and overlaps the shaft of thenext metacarpal behind it. In the leg the fibulais free, and extends halfway down the tibiotarsalshaft. The hypotarsus of the tarso-metatarsus isgrooved mesially for the passage of tendons be-hind, and is also once perforated near its middlefor the same purpose. As I have already stated,the remainder of the skeleton of this bird is char-acteristically gallinaceous and need not detain uslonger here. I would add, however, that thetarsal cartilages in the turkey extensivelyossify. CHAPTER V BREAST SPONGE—SHREWDNESS NrATURE has provided the old gobblerwith a very useful appendage. Auduboncalls it the breast sponge/ and it covers

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