WILD TURKEY. 51 



One turkey, collected December 23, 1899, in North Carolina, had 

 eaten half a pint of dogwood berries. Its crop contained also a few 

 pine needles. Four Florida wild turkeys also were examined. Nearly 

 100 percent of their food was vegetable. The animal matter was found 

 in two birds and consisted of the useful predaceous ground beetle 

 {Scarites subteri'an£us) and the injurious 12-spotted cucumber 

 beetle {Diabrotica 12-punctata) ; also caterpillars {Hadena tnrhu- 

 lenta), grasshoppers {3Ielanoph(8 arboreus and Arnilia sp.), 2 dragon 

 flies {Libellula sp.), and 1 centipede. This is the only record of the 

 first-mentioned grasshopper's occurrence in Florida. A third turkey 

 had eaten half a pint of long-leafed pine seeds. Many of these seeds 

 were germinating, and some of them had cotyledons more than an 

 inch long. The Florida bobwhite also is very fond of these pine 

 seeds. The same bird had eaten three thimblefuls of grass seed 

 {Panicum minimum)^ 12 spicebush berries {Benzoin benzoin), 20 

 berries of the wax myrtle {Myrica cerifera), 2 live-oak acorns {Quer- 

 cus virginiana) , and 15 acorns of the Spanish oak {Quercus digitata). 

 Another turkey had taken 25 tubers of the ground nut (Apios 

 apios) — some of them exceeding an inch in length — and the berries 

 of false Solomon's seal {Polygonatwm sp.), southern tupelo, and wax 

 myrtle. Half a pint of the fruiting panicles of a grass {Muhlen- 

 bergia sp.) was taken from the crop of a New Mexican turkey shot 

 in November in the Manzano Mountains. It had eaten also grass 

 blades, seeds of cheat, pihon nuts, and seeds of other pines. 



Although grain was found in only one stomach, the writer observed 

 turkeys on the Roanoke bottoms in December, 1903, feeding on corn 

 after the crop had been harvested. During November and Decem- 

 ber half of the food of the turkey is fruit. The kinds most frequently 

 eaten include, besides those already mentioned, myrtle holly [Oreo- 

 phila myrtifolia), mulberries, wild strawberries, blackberries, cedar 

 ijerries, and holly berries. On San Francisco Mountain, Arizona, Dr. 

 C. Hart Merriam found turkeys in August feeding on wild goose- 

 berries. A month later, at the same locality, he found them living on 

 piiion nuts." In Arizona E. A. Goldman found a flock of 150 young 

 and old turkeys that roosted in one place. The gobblers were at this 

 time in a separate flock. These birds were feeding on nuts of the 

 piiion {Pinus edulis), a staple Indian food of the West. They ate 

 also juniper berries {Juniper us utahensis).^ On the upper Gila 

 River, New Mexico, in November, 1873, H. W. Henshaw found turkeys 

 very numerous and feeding almost exclusively upon grass seeds 

 and grasshoppers, the crops of many birds being fairly crannned with 

 the former. Major Bendire says that the Florida turkey feeds on 



o N. A. Fauna, No. 3, p. 89, 1890. 

 6 Auk, vol. 19, p. 123, 127, 1902. 



