42 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA 
from the house, and two miles from the town of Greens- 
boro. The wild turkey hen had hatched her brood some- 
where in this field, where she would remain until fall, 
when she would take her young to the timbered land on 
the creek bottoms, two or three miles distant. I raised this 
young turkey. It proved to be a hen, was very gentle, 
feeding from my hand, and manifesting, after it was 
grown, none of the wild instincts of this wildest of birds. 
“Another attempt at rearing and domesticating the 
wild turkey was made with equal success. This time, 
however, the eggs were hatched, and the young raised 
by a barnyard hen. I was out one day shooting squirrels, 
when, in a somewhat frequented spot, and where I should 
never have thought to find the nest of a wild turkey, a 
hen rose almost under my feet, and ran off through the 
woods. Examining the spot that she had just left I dis- 
covered her nest in the leaves not three feet from where 
I was standing. It contained ten eggs, in shape and size 
not differing from those of the tame turkey. There was 
no undergrowth in the woods around the nest; but a few 
bushes and briers grew over it. As I looked at the eggs 
the idea suddenly suggested itself that I might set these 
eggs under a domestic hen, and raise the young. I took 
the eggs from the nest, carried them home carefully, and, 
incubation having already advanced, they were hatched 
in about ten days, under a barnyard hen. 
“To prevent the young turkeys from running away 
and being lost—for they are very wild when first hatched 
—TI had an inclosure (of boards) about two feet high 
and twenty feet square. In the center of this, the hen 
was confined in a coop. The inclosed space gave the 
young turkeys room to exercise, and also prevented their 
escape, till they had lost their natural wildness, and had 
become gentle enough to feed from the hand, or to allow 
themselves to be handled without alarm. They were sup- 
plied chiefly with animal food in the form of curds, the 
whey having been pressed from milk after coagulation. 
They grew and thrived on this diet. Out of nine that 
were hatched, eight lived to be grown, one dying when 
about a month old, from a wound inflicted by the spur 
