18 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUXTER. 



Of all turkej-hunters, our friend W is the most 



experienced ; he is a bachelor, lives upon his own planta- 

 tion, studies, philosophizes, makes fishing tackle, and 

 kills turkeys. With him, it is a science reduced to cer- 

 tainty. Place him in the woods where turkeys frequent, 

 and he is as certain of them as if already in his pos- 

 session. 



He understands the habits of the bird so well, that 

 he will, on his first essay, on a new hunting-ground, give 

 the exact character of the hunters the turkeys have been 

 accustomed to deal with. The most crafty turkeys are 



those which W seeks, hemmed in by plantations, 



inhabiting uncultivatable land, and always in more or 

 less danger of pursuit and discovery, they become, under 

 such circumstances, wild beyond any game whatever. 



They seem incapable of being deceived, and taking 

 every thing strange, as possessed to them of danger — 

 whether it be a moth out of season — or a veteran hunt- 

 er — they appear to common, or even uncommon ob- 

 servers, annihilated from the country, were it not for 

 their footprints occasionally to be seen in the soft soil 

 beside the running stream, or in the light dust in the 

 beaten road. 



A veteran gobbler, used to all the tricks of the 

 hunter's art — one who has had his wattles cut with 

 shot; against whose well-defended breast had struck the 

 spent ball of the rifle — one who, though almost starved, 

 would walk by the treasures of grain in the " trap" and 



