466 Wright, Early Records of the Wild Turkey. [oct. 



on the Tombigbee River describes its operation thus : ^ " With the 

 end in which the arrow is lodged in their mouths, a sight is drawn 

 upon the object to be shot at; when with a sudden blow into the 

 reed, the arrow is darted out the other end, and with'a force suffi- 

 cient to kill at twenty or thirty feet birds — and often wild turkeys." 

 Concerning this same practice, Timberlake, 1762, when in Cherokee 

 country, writes : ^ " There are . . turkeys . . pursued only by the 

 children, who, at eight or ten years old, are very expert at killing 

 with a sar-bacan, or hollow cane through which they blow a small 

 dart, whose weakness obliges them to shoot at the eye of the larger 

 sort of prey, which they seldom miss." 



Thirty years after De Rasieries, Adrian Van der Donck in a 

 'Description of Netherlands, 1656' finds that ^ "Sometimes the 

 turkeys are caught with dogs in the snow; but the greatest number 

 are shot at night from the trees. The turkeys sleep in trees and 

 frequently in large flocks together. They also usually sleep in the 

 same place every night. When a sleeping place is discovered, then 

 two or three gunners go to the place together at night, when ihey 

 shoot the fowls, and in such cases frequently bring in a dozen or 

 more. The Indians take many in snares, when the weather changes 

 in winter. Then they lay bulbous roots, which the turkeys are 

 fond of, in the small rills and streams of water, which the birds take 

 up, when they are ensnared and held until the artful Indian takes 

 the turkey as his prize." 



The settlers and foreign sportsmen in general try all the Indian 

 methods and invent others of their own. Latrobe, when at Little 

 Rock, Arkansas, tries to imitate the turkeys as do the Indians. He 

 says,^ "Yet I plead guilty to having sometimes tried to coax the 

 turkeys in rather an extraordinary way. . .The practical hunter 

 will induce them to approach him as he steals through the grass, 

 by skilful imitation of their gobble and piping. But often, as 

 buried in the thick cane brake, and watching one of those little 

 openings, where the birds sun themselves, I heard the tread, rustle, 



1 McKinney, Thos. L. Memoirs, OflBcial and Personal; etc. 2 vols. N. Y. 

 1846, Vol. I, p. 163. 



» The Memoirs of Lieut. H. Timberlake — . London, 1765, p. 45. 



» N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls. New Ser. Vol. I, 1841, p. 172. 



< Latrobe, C. J. The Rambler in North America 1832-1833. 2 vols. New 

 York, 1835, Vol. I, p. 205. 



