Tame Wild Turkeys 



By WILLIAM T. DAVIS 



With photographs by the author 



DOWN on the Florida coast, among the Ten Thousand Islands, in the 

 Gulf of Mexico, there is a small hamlet known as Everglade. A 

 narrow river ebbs and flows with the tide before the few houses on 

 its banks, and the place has the appearance of being on the mainland. As a 

 matter of fact, however, it is on an island; for the "river" has a back entrance, 

 so to speak, and there is another lead out to the Gulf. Our mission to Ever- 

 glade, in April, 191 2, was the collecting of insects, and so daily we rambled 

 about the garden or in the near-by salt meadows. 



Also, strolling about this open area and among the orange trees were three 

 tame Wild Turkeys — two gobblers and a hen. They, too, were entomologists, 

 and interested in grasshoppers. With the hen we had Httle to do, for she 





generally kept at a respectable distance; but the young gobblers had no thought 

 of running away, and all that was necessary was to wave the insect net at 

 them, or make some demonstration by way of a challenge, when with a few 

 short chucks the Turkeys closed in, and the net handle was then useful as a 

 weapon of defence. It was one of our amusements to get the Turkeys much 

 excited, and then run along a path at top speed, with the long-legged gobblers 

 very mad and in hot pursuit. Then we would pop into one of the out-build- 



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