340 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO OSCEOLA Scott 

 FLORIDA TURKEY 



HABITS 



The Florida wild turkey, which is resident in the southern half of 

 Florida, was described by W. E. D. Scott (1890) and named for 

 Osceola, a famous chief of the Seminole Indians. Scott says that it 

 is similar to the northern wild turkey, 



but perceptibly darker in general tone. Coloring of tail and upper tail-coverts 

 similar in both forms. The white on the primary and outer secondary quills 

 restricted, and the dark color (brownish black) predominating, the white being 

 present only as detached, narrow, broken bars not reaching the shaft of the 

 feather. The inner secondaries of a generally dirty grayish brown without 

 apparent bars, but with brownish vermiculations on the inner web. 



Referring later to the Caloosahatchie region, he (1892) writes: 



This is still a very abundant bird in this part of Florida, though said to be 

 diminishing in numbers every year and to be not nearly so plentiful as it was 

 ten or fifteen years ago. During my stay at Fort Myers from November till 

 March, the open season, the birds were constantly offered for sale in the mar- 

 kets, the price being on the average ten cents a pound for dressed birds. A hen 

 turkey could generally be bought for from seventy-five cents to one dollar and 

 a gobbler for from one dollar to a dollar and a half. Only a few years back 

 the regular price paid to the hunters was twenty-five cents each. This I was 

 told by many reliable people who had lived there a dozen years or more. 



It would seem that these birds, living as they do at this point in cypress 

 swamps and " bay heads," have a natural protection that will not allow of 

 their absolute extermination, but, unless the exceedingly good laws passed by 

 the last legislature of the State are carefully enforced, the Wild Turkey, still 

 very abundant in this region, is doomed to become in a few years as rare as 

 it has already become in the northern part of Florida. 



Dr. William L. Ralph, in a letter to Major Bendire (1892), states: 



Fifteen years ago I found the Wild Turkey abundant in most parts of Florida, 

 north of Lake Okeechobee, with perhaps the exception of the Indian River 

 region, but they have gradually decreased in numbers since then, and though 

 still common in places where the country is wild and unsettled, they are 

 rapidly disappearing from those parts, in the vicinity of villages and navigable 

 waters. 



One can hardly believe that the Wild Turkeys of to-day are of the same 

 species as those of fifteen or twenty years ago. Then they were rather stupid 

 birds, which it did not require much skill to shoot, but now I do not know of a 

 game bird or mammal more alert or more difficult to approach. Formerly, I 

 have often, as they were sitting in trees on the banks of some stream, passed 

 very near them, both in rowboats and in steamers, without causing them to 

 fly, and I once, with a party of friends, ran a small steamer within 20 yards 

 of a flock, which did not take wing until several shots had been fired at them. 



Turkeys are still fairly common in the more remote regions of 

 Florida, or where no hunting is allowed, especially around the edges 

 of the larger cypress swamps, such as the " big cypress " in Collier 



