Wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, hand-colored bird plate

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Few birds carry as much American history as the wild turkey, and this hand-colored plate shows the species as naturalists of the early 1800s drew it, with its bronze-dark plumage, bare blue and red head, and fanned tail. Wild turkeys were once abundant across eastern North America, and they were a staple of settler and Native American diets, which made them a familiar subject for illustrators and collectors. Plates like this one were often colored by hand after printing, so each copy varies slightly in tone and detail. The bird also gave its name to a national tradition: Benjamin Franklin famously argued for it as the national symbol over the bald eagle.

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