The Wild Turkey 259 



were within reach. Knowing this, the crafty hens 

 carefully hide their nests, and are mighty careful 

 not to give their lord the private address. In 

 turkeydom there is no such word as " latch-key," 

 nor would the blustering old rip use it if he had 

 it, except he meant to cut up and smash the out- 

 fit. The very last sound the hen turkey would 

 care to hear would be the homeward step of her 

 lord of creation, from which it would appear that 

 so77ie hens know when they are well off. 



The nest is a very crude example of bird archi- 

 tecture, being a slight hollow roughly lined with 

 leaves. I have found it beside a stump, or log, 

 and once under a big brush-pile. The number of 

 eggs varies from about eight to a dozen. They 

 are like those of the domestic bird, white, freckled 

 with reddish brown. Old woodsmen have told 

 me that the third season's laying is the largest, 

 and that the young hen's first lot numbers seven 

 or eight, one or two more the next season, and 

 still more the third, after which the number de- 

 creases season by season. This I suspect to be 

 true, for it is reasonable, and the foxy old fellows 

 who told me had robbed many nests in spite of 

 the law, not to eat the eggs, but to put them 

 under domestic fowl. Furthermore, the men 

 uniformly claimed that the young from eggs 

 stolen when almost hatched and hurried to the 

 care of a fowl, were invariably wilder and more 



