26 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 



yet they never think of looking down, and retreating 

 through the trench by which they entered, although they 

 jump over it every few moments during their ceaseless 

 procession. 



This want of though tfulness on their part proves fatal 

 to them, for they are kept in prison until the trapper ar- 

 rives and wrings their necks, or takes them home alive, 

 to see if they are susceptible of domestication. If cap- 

 tured young, it does not require much time to make them 

 as tame as the ordinary farm-yard variety. 



Audubon says that these " semi-civilized " turkeys will 

 not roost with their domestic congeners;" and Bachman 

 states that if they are kept away from the latter, and 

 bred among themselves, in confinement, tlie third gen- 

 eration will lose their brilliancy of plumage and assume a 

 pale-brown color, with an occasional white feather. Al- 

 though turkeys are killed in various ways, sliooting them 

 from baited bhnds is the favorite method with some 

 persons. The blinds are made of leaves and bushes, 

 and are generally crude affairs, as all that is required is 

 a shelter sufficiently dense to conceal the movements of 

 the hunter. When one of these is built, a trail of grain 

 is carried from it into the haunts of the birds, and while 

 they are eating the food that is to lead them to death, 

 the sportsman sits or stands almost as motionless as a 

 statue behind his improvised screen, waits until several 

 of them get their heads in a line within range, and then 

 blazes away at them. If he uses more than one gun he 

 may bag half a dozen, but he is also likely to claim only 

 one or two, as they can stand a large amount of lead. 



The negroes of the South frequently have a baited trench 

 before their blinds, and when once the birds get into this 

 pit of destruction few escape, for the black hunters load 

 their guns nearly to the muzzle, and when they fire they 

 cut a clean swath through the ranks of their feathered 

 visitors. As this is not considered legitimate sport by 



