Note 11 — Chapter IV · THE TURKEY HISTORIC

Newton, Alfred. A Dictionary of Birds. (Assisted by Hans Gadow, with contributions from Richard Lydekker, Chas. S. Roy, and Robert W. Shufeldt, M. D.) Pt. IV, 1896, p. 994. The quotation is from the Art. "Turkey," and in further reference to its name, Professor Newton remarks, "The French Coq and Poule d'Inde (whence Dindon) involve no contradiction, looking to the general idea of what India then was. One of the earliest German names for the bird, Kalekuttisch Hiim (whence the Scandinavian Kalkun) must have arisen through some mistake at present inexplicable; but this does not refer, as is generally supposed, to Calcutta, but to Calicut on the Malabar coast (Notes and Queries, ser. 6, X, p. 185).

"But even Linnæus could not clear himself of the confusion, and, possibly following Sibbald, unhappily misapplied the name Meleagris, undeniably belonging to the guinea-fowl, as the generic term for what we now know as the turkey, adding thereto as its specific designation the word gallopavo, taken from the Gallopavus of Gesner, who, though not wholly free from error, was less mistaken than some of his contemporaries and even successors."