Note 31 — Chapter IV · THE TURKEY HISTORIC
Reading edition
Among the luxuries belonging to the high condition of civilization exhibited by the Mexican nation at the time of the Spanish conquest was the possession of Montezuma by one of the most extensive zoölogical gardens on record, numbering nearly all the animals of that country, with others brought at much expense from great distances, and it is stated that turkeys were supplied as food in large numbers daily to the beasts of prey in the menagerie of the Mexican Emperor. (Baird, ibid. pp. 288, 289.)