252 The Turkey Family 



woods of Kent and Essex counties — in fact 

 hunters, black, white, and tan, from almost every 

 township of the western counties — used to come 

 in after the first tracking snow, with turkeys the 

 like of which would be difficult to find to-day. 

 But, even then, a five-dollar bill was readily ob- 

 tainable for a prime gobbler, for such a bird was 

 a worthy offering to some revered chief justice, 

 or other good old chap who was given to warm- 

 ing his buttocks in the seats of the mighty. 



The demand for the great birds worked harm 

 there, as it has done in all their old ranges. A 

 turkey is easily trapped, and log traps must 

 have been plentiful in the lonely woods. And 

 there was other mischief, for the farmers were 

 long-headed and persistent trailers of a dollar, so 

 when they found a turkey's nest, which they fre- 

 quently did, they looted it and placed the eggs 

 either under a domestic turkey or a barnyard 

 fowl. It is true that the wild turkey-hen, if 

 robbed of her eggs, will lay again ; but the man 

 who did the robbing knew this, and he also laid 

 again — that is, laid low for the second lot. The 

 countrywomen knew the value of the direct wild 

 cross, so they used to suffer their tame hens to 

 range the woods and meet the wild gobblers. 

 The half-wild broods were allowed to remain in 

 the woods until, from feeding on mast, they had 

 acquired the proper flavor. Then they were 



