The Wild Turkey 253 



rounded up and every one that possibly could 

 pass for a wild bird was sold as such. 



I well remember, as a youth, being asked to 

 take some farmer's rifle and shoot the half-wild 

 turkeys, the alleged reason being that the birds 

 could not be caught. This, of course, was non- 

 sense — the farmer's real object being to have a 

 bird that showed the mark of the bullet as proof 

 of genuine wild blood. Another trick was to 

 feed a big, red-legged gobbler until he would 

 scale about twenty-five pounds, then shoot him 

 with a rifle in the presence of some reliable party 

 who would swear, if need be, that he saw the bird 

 shot. Still another, and a deadly way, was to hire 

 some buck Indian to do the shooting and the 

 selling. The Buck would shoot the birds, fix a 

 strip of bark to their necks, and take in two or 

 three at a time to market. Such birds, showing- 

 bullet marks, having the bark, and, above all, 

 offered by a solemn savage who couldn't speak 

 ten words of English when he was paid not to, 

 found eager purchasers at fancy prices. This 

 method, however, as may readily be imagined, was 

 not very hard upon the wild stock. 



The fatal weakness of the wild turkey was the 

 ease with which it could be trapped — a weak- 

 ness, by the way, which is common to all galli- 

 naceous birds. The old pen traps, made of logs, 

 and not unlike rough log shanties, used to take 



