WILD TURKEY HINTING. H 



its liabits, and its absence from any of its accustomed 

 haunts, is indicative of its total extermination from the 

 place where it was once familiar. 



At present, the traveller in the '' far west,'' while 

 wending his solitary way through the trackless forests, 

 sometimes very unexpectedly meets a drove of turkeys 

 in his pathway, and when his imagination suddenly 

 warms witli the thought that he is near the poultry -yard 

 of some hospitable farmer, and while his wearied limbs 

 seem to labor with extra pain, as he thinks of the couch 

 compared with the cold ground as a resting-place, he 

 hears a sudden whizzing in the air, a confused noise, 

 and his seeming evidences of civilization and comfort 

 vanish as the wild turkey disappears, giving hiui by 

 their precipitate flight, the most painful evidence that he 

 is far from the haunts of men and home. 



Turkey hunting is a favorite pursuit with all who 

 can practise it with success, but it is a bird liberally 

 provided by nature with the instinct of self-preservation, 

 and is, therefore, seldom found off its guard. Skilful 

 indeed must be the shot that stops the turkey in its 

 flight of alarm, and yet its wings, as with the partridge 

 and quail, are little used for the purposes of escaping 

 from danger. It is on their speed that they rely for 

 ^fety, and we doubt if the best hounds could catch 

 them in a race, even if the turkey's wings were clipped 

 so that they could not resort to height to elude their 

 pursuers. So little indeed docs the bird depend upon 



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