THE WILD TURKEY 295 
sides of the river. The turkeys were particularly fine- 
flavored, their food being abundant, consisting mostly 
of wild grapes, rose apples (the seed pod of the wild 
rose), cottonwood buds and hackberries, the latter ap- 
parently their favorite, at least to judge by the quantity 
contained in their crops. 
“The last turkey killed by me was at a return camp 
about thirty miles above Fort Randall. Beyond that 
point I have no personal experience, but while stationed 
at Fort Pierre I was told by the interpreter of the 
fort that turkeys formerly were quite abundant in the 
heavy timber about the mouth of the Big Cheyenne 
River about thirty miles above.” 
The statement made by the interpreter at Fort Pierre 
furnishes quite satisfactory evidence that turkeys were 
once found on the Missouri River as far north as the 
mouth of the Cheyenne River. 
Colonel Scott has also called my attention to the diary 
of Lieut. Rufus Saxton, printed in Vol. I, Pacific R. R. 
Reports, 1853-4, which says of Cedar Island, on the 
Missouri River, below Ft. Pierre: “Saw wild turkeys 
for the first time. They are seldom seen above this 
point, and have never, I believe, been found beyond the 
Rocky Mountains.” The reference, of course, is to 
the northern Rocky Mountains. 
Alexander Henry, the Younger, states that in 1806 
the Cheyenne Indians coming up from the south 
brought with them the tails of turkeys which the Man- 
dans and Minitari greatly desired for use as fans and 
for which they traded, and from this we may infer that 
