A Christmas Carol: Was It A Goose Or A Turkey?
At the conclusion of Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, the reformed Ebenezer Scrooge, filled with the Christmas spirit, asks a street boy to run to the butcher's shop and order the very large bird in the window for delivery to Bob Crachit's family.
"Was it a goose or a turkey in the Christmas Carol?", a friend asked me at work. " I'm sure it was a goose", I replied, "Because the Wild Turkey is native to North and Central America and not native to England or Europe. While the goose would have been common in butcher shops in Victorian England." "I saw the movie", my friend rejoindered. "I remember, I believe it was a turkey." Not trusting in the accuracy of the movies on any issue I became entrenched and insisted it was a goose. "I will read the ending of the story tonight and settle the question."
Scrooge did buy the large turkey hanging in the shop window. A bird so large that Dickens describes it as being unable to stand on its own two legs when alive. A turkey would have been rare in Victorian England, though not unknown, and that much more of a special gift to the Cratchits.
The Wild Turkey was domesticated by the native Pre-Columbian peoples. The Aztecs considered the turkey so important that they dedicated two religious festivals to turkeys. Benjamin Franklin suggested the Wild Turkey would be a much better symbol than the Bald Eagle as America's national bird. "The Bald Eagle is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly...He watches the Osprey and when the Osprey catches a fish the Bald Eagle pursues him and steals the fish."
Wild Turkeys are fast and agile fliers reaching flight speeds of 50 miles a hour and can run at speeds up to 18 miles an hour. By the early 1900's Turkey populations dropped to 30,000 turkeys in the wild. Conservation efforts, money raised by a tax on hunting equipment, legislation and the cooperation of private landowners have been successful in restoring wild turkey numbers in the United States. Populations of six to seven million total exist in every state except Alaska. So when you see a Wild Turkey while birding remember its place from the Aztecs to Victorian England and be thankful we still have this magnificent bird with us today.
