300 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
The young are believed to be very tender and subject 
to many dangers from dampness. Some writers de- 
clare that the mother leads them on high ground for 
the first week or two of their life in order that they 
may escape the dangers of dew or rain from the grass. 
Audubon says: “To prevent the disastrous effect of 
rainy weather the mother, like the skilful physician, 
plucks the buds of the spicewood bush and gives them 
to her young”! The little birds are able to fly at about 
two or three weeks old, and soon after that leave the 
ground and roost on the low branch of a tree sheltered 
under their mother’s wings. When danger threatens, 
the mother turkey, like many other gallinaceous birds, 
calls to her young, which at once crouch and hide and 
cannot then be seen. 
It is said that if the male turkey finds a nest of eggs 
upon which the hen is sitting he will destroy them, and 
that if he comes upon a brood of newly hatched young 
he will kill them. It is certain that during the autumn 
and winter the young birds and the females associate 
together, while the old males keep by themselves and 
do not begin to seek the society of their mates until the 
approach of spring. 
In the Rocky Mountains the nests are built at an al- 
titude of from 3,000 to 5,000 feet, but as the weather 
grows warmer and the snow disappears, the old hen 
leads the young up to the higher mountains, so that 
they finally summer at from eight to ten thousand feet. 
In the late autumn, when the weather grows cold and 
snows come on the mountain ranges, the birds move 
