16 AMEEICAX GAME BIRD SHOOTHSTG. 



hours with the steadiest persistency. As both sexes roost 

 apart at this period, the hens avoid answering the gob- 

 blers for some time, but they finally become less obdurate, 

 and coyly return the call. When the males hear this, all 

 within hearing respond to it promptly and vehemently^ 

 uttering notes similar to those which the domestic gob- 

 blers do when they hear an unusual sound. 



If the female answering the call is on the ground, 

 the males fly to her and parade before her with all the 

 pompous stratting that characterizes the family. They 

 spread and erect their tails, depress their wings with a 

 quivering motion and trail them along the ground, and 

 draw the head back on the shoulders, as if to increase 

 their dignity and importance; then wheel, and march, 

 and swell, and gobble, as if they were trying to outdo 

 each other in airs and graces. The female, however, 

 pays little attention to these ceremonious parades, and 

 demurely looks on while the rivals for her affection try to 

 outdo one another in playing the gallant and dandy. 



When the strutting and gobbling fail to win her, the 

 candidates for matrimony challenge each other to mortal 

 combat, and whichever is successful in the contest walks 

 away with her in a most nonchalant manner. The easy 

 indifference of the hen as to which she will follow may 

 not be pleasing to persons imbued with romantic feelings, 

 yet she is only obeying a wise law of nature, which 

 decrees that only the fittest should live, and in the lower 

 animal world these are characterized by their physical 

 qualities. 



The battles between the males are often waged with 

 such desperate valor that more than one combatant is 

 sent to join the great majority, as they deliver very hard 

 blows at each other's heads, and do not give up a contest 

 until tliey are dead, or so exhausted as to be scarcely able 

 to move. When one has killed another, it is said to caress 

 the dead bird in an apparently affectionate manner, as if 



