WILD TURKEY HUNTING. 



bird where it is constantly sought for as game, from 

 where it securely lives in the untrodden solitude. The 

 turkey will, therefore, succeed at times in finding u 

 home in places comparatively '' thickly settled,'- and 

 be so seldom seen, that they are generally supposed to 

 be extinct. Under such circumstances, they fall vic- 

 tims only to the very few hunters who may be said to 

 make a science of their pursuit. 



" I rather think," said a turkey-hunter, " if you 

 want to find a thing very cunning^ you need not go to 

 the fox or such varmints, but take a gobbler. I once 

 hunted regular after the same one for three years, and 

 never saw him twice. 



" I knew the critter's ' yelp' as well as I know Mu- 

 sic's, my old deer dog ; and his track was as plain to 

 me as the trail of a log hauled through a. dusty road. 



" I hunted the gobbler always in the same ' range,' 

 and about the same ' scratchins,' and he got so, at last, 

 that when I ' called,' he would run from me, taking the 

 opj)os,ite direction to my own foot-tracks. 



" Now, the old rascal kept a great deal on a ridge, at 

 the end of which, where it lost itself in the swamp, was 

 a hollow cypress tree. Determined to outwit him, I 

 put on my shoes, heeh foremost., walked leisurely down 

 tlie ridge, and got into the hollow tree, and gave a 

 * call,' and boys," said the speaker exultingly, '' it w^uld 

 have done you good to see that turkey coming towards 

 me on a trot, looking at my tracks, and thinking I had 

 g.nnc the otJtrr iray." 



