344 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



weed}- places. Very difficult to find, particularly when placed in 

 growths of underbrush." 



Eggs. — The eggs are similar to those of the other wild turkeys. 

 The measurements of 49 eggs average 62.4 by 46.5 millimeters; the 

 eggs showing the four extremes measure 64.8 by 43.2, 64 by 48.6, 57.2 

 by 43.6, and 61.7 by 43.2 millimeters. 



Food. — Simmons (1925) says of its feeding habits: 



When pecans are ripe, the birds feed under the pecan trees along the valleys. 

 At other seasons, they wander about wooded slopes in the daytime, feeding 

 among the cedars and scrub oaks which cover the hillsides and ridges of the 

 land that was once prairie ; at night, they return to the valleys to roost. Feed 

 on nuts, acorns, seeds, grain, berries, plant tops, insects, crickets, and grass- 

 hoppers. 



Sennett (1879) says that in April "their principal food was the 

 wild tomato, which attains about the size of a cranberry, and which 

 they devoured whole, together with insects and larvae." 



Behavior. — Simmons (1925) writes: 



Observed singly or in pairs during the breeding season, at other times in 

 flocks of from 12 to 15 or more ; flocks are usually practically all of one sex or 

 the other. Very wary ; when in danger, it usually sneaks away or runs 

 through the underbrush and into thickets, preferring to trust to its stout 

 legs rather than taking wing. Usually roost each night in the same locality, 

 birds returning singly and by twos and threes at dusk, until all the birds have 

 assembled in their favorite places in the tops of larger, taller trees, generally 

 over water and frequently in partially submerged trees, possibly for protection 

 against prowling coyotes and bob-cats ; big pecan trees along wooded creek 

 valleys, in washes, and in bottomlands are generally selected. Birds make their 

 way back to the higher ridges before daylight has half arrived. Males flock 

 together during the period in which females are kept busy with eggs or care of 

 young. 



Vernon Bailey, in Mrs. Bailey's book (1902), gives the following 

 account of the habits of the Rio Grande turkey : 



Over most of the country where the wild turkeys were once plenty they 

 have now become scarce or extinct, but in a few places may still be found in 

 something like their original abundance, living much as their ancestors lived, 

 breeding unmolested, strolling through the woods in flocks, and gathering at 

 night in goodly numbers in their favorite roosting places. Perhaps the best 

 of these undevastated regions are on the big stock ranches of southern Texas, 

 where the birds are protected not by loosely formed and unenforced game 

 laws, but by the care of owners of large ranches, who would as soon think of 

 exterminating their herds of cattle as of shooting more than the normal in- 

 crease of game under their control. Here, at least through the breeding 

 season, the turkeys are not more wary than many of the other large birds, 

 and as we surprised them in the half open mesquite woods along the Nueces 

 River, would rarely fly, merely sneaking into the thickets, or at most running 

 from us. The ranchmen say that the turkeys always select trees over water 

 to roost in when possible, and no doubt they do it for protection in this region 

 where foxes, coyotes, and wildcats abound. On the edge of the flooded bottoms 

 of the Nueces River they roosted in the partially submerged huisache trees. 



