150 Incubation, 



tended to, will perhaps steal a nest abroad, 

 in some improper and insecure place. The 

 turkey hen lays a considerable number of 

 eggs in the spring, to the amount of eigh- 

 teen to twenty-five and upwards, and her term 

 of incubation is thirty days. She is a most 

 steady sitter, and will sometimes continue 

 upon her eggs until almost starved, rather 

 than quit her nest : hence the necessity 

 of constant attendance with both victuals 

 and water. She is also a most affec- 

 tionate mother; and that most curious 

 and accurate observer, Buifon, remarks her 

 soft and plaintive cry, with her different 

 tones and inflections of voice, expressive of 

 her various feelings. These facts, how- 

 ever, are to be received with a due degree 

 of circumspection, since I have known un- 

 steady sitters among turkies, and however 

 affectionate, the turkey hen, from her natural 

 heedlessness and stupidity, is the most care- 

 less of mothers, and being a great traveller 

 herself, will drag her brood over field, heath, 

 or bog, never casting a regard behind her to 

 call in her straggling chicks, nor stopping 



