WILD TURKEY. 207 



lays but one nest of eggs during the season. Several Turkey hens some- 

 times associate, perhaps for mutual safety, deposit their eggs in the 

 same nest, and rear their broods together. Mr. Audubon once found 

 three females sitting on forty-two eggs. In such cases, the nest is con- 

 stantly guarded by one of the parties, so that no Crow, Raven, nor even 

 Polecat, dares approach it. 



The mother will not forsake her eggs, when near hatching, while life 

 remains ; she will suffer an enclosure to be made around and imprison 

 her, rather than abandon her charge. Mr. Audubon witnessed the 

 hatching of a brood, while thus endeavoring to secure the young and 

 mother. " I have lain flat," says he, " within a very few feet, and seen 

 her gently rise from the eggs, look anxiously towards them, chuck with 

 a sound peculiar to the mother on such an occasion, remove carefully 

 each half empty shell, and with her bill caress and dry the younglings, 

 that already stand tottering and attempting to force their way out of 

 the nest." 



When the process of incubation is ended, and the mother is about 

 to retire from the nest with her young brood, she shakes herself vio- 

 lently, picks and adjusts the feathers about the belly, and assumes a 

 different aspect ; her eyes are alternately inclined obliquely upwards 

 and sideways ; she stretches forth her neck, in every direction, to dis- 

 cover birds of prey or other enemies ; her wings are partially spread, 

 and she softly clucks to keep her tender offspring close to her side. 

 They proceed slowly, and, as the hatching generally occurs in the after- 

 noon, they sometimes return to pass the first night in the nest. While 

 very young, the mother leads them to elevated dry places, as if aware 

 that humidity, during the first few days of their life, would be very dan- 

 gerous to them, they having then no other protection than a delicate, 

 soft, hairy down. In very rainy seasons Wild Turkeys are scarce, be- 

 cause, when completely wetted, the young rarely survive. 



At the expiration of about two weeks, the young leave the ground on 

 which they had previously reposed at night under the female, and follow 

 her to some low, large branch of a tree, where they nestle under the 

 broadly curved wings of their vigilant and fostering parent. The time 

 then approaches in which they seek the open ground or prairie land 

 during the day, in search of strawberries, and subsequently of dewber- 

 ries, blackberries, and grasshoppers, thus securing a plentiful food, and 

 enjoying the influence of the genial sun. They frequently dust themselves 

 in shallow cavities of the soil or on ant-hills, in order to clean off tlie loose 

 skin of their growing feathers, and rid tliemselves of ticks and other 

 vermin. 



The young Turkeys now grow rapidly, and in the month of August, 

 when several broods flock together, and are led by their mothers to the 

 forest, they are stout and quite able to secure themseves from the unex- 



