THE AMERICAN TURKEY 257 



with white settlers, who not only destroyed the 

 bird, but cleared away its cover, it gradually 

 decreased in numbers, so that the day seems not 

 far distant when a Turkey will be as rare in 

 the United States as it is in an English county ! 

 As Bendire remarks, there are plenty of records 

 testifying to the former abundance of the American 

 Turkey throughout the Southern New England 

 States, and of its existence in Southern Maine; 

 but at the present day its total extirpation east of 

 the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River "is 

 only a question of a few years." 



The Turkey, like most game birds, is a resident, 

 Bendire writes of its habits as follows : " The Wild 

 Turkey is essentially a woodland bird, and inhabits 

 the damp and often swampy bottom-lands along 

 the borders of the larger streams as well as the 

 drier mountainous districts found within its range, 

 spending the greater part of the day on the ground 

 in search of food, and roosting by night in the 

 tallest trees to be found. From constant persecu- 

 tion, in the more settled portions of its range it has 

 become by far the most cunning, suspicious, and 

 wary of all our game-birds ; while in sections of the 

 Indian Territory and Texas, where it has, till 

 recently, been but little molested, it is still by no 

 17 



