198 PROFITS IN POULTRY. 



HABITS OF THE WILD TURKEY. 



The males commence wooing as early as February in 

 some of the extreme Southern States; but March is the 

 opening of the season throughout the country, and 

 April the month in which it reaches its highest develop- 

 ment. The males may then be heard calling to the 

 females from every direction, until the woods ring with 

 their loud and liquid cries, which are commenced long 

 ere the sun appears above the horizon, and continued 

 for hours with the steadiest persistency. As both sexes 

 roost apart at this period, the hens avoid answering the 

 gobblers for some time, but they finally become less ob- 

 durate, and coyly return the call. When the males hear 

 this, all within hearing respond promptly and vehe- 

 mently, uttering notes similar to those which the domes- 

 tic gobblers do when they hear an unusual sound. If the 

 female answering the call is on the ground, the males fly 

 to her and parade before her with all the pompous strut- 

 ting that characterizes the family. They spread and 

 erect their tails, depress their wings with a quivering 

 motion and trail them along the ground, and draw the 

 head back on the shoulders, as if to increase their dignity 

 and importance; then wheel, and march, and swell, and 

 gobble, as if they were trying to outdo each other in airs 

 and graces. The female, however, pays little attention 

 to these ceremonious parades, and demurely looks on while 

 the rivals for her affection try to outdo one another in 

 playing the gallant and dandy. When the strutting and 

 gobbling fail to win her, the candidates for matrimony 

 challenge each other to mortal combat, and whichever is 

 successful in the contest walks away with her in the most 

 nonchalant manner. The easy indifference of the hen as to 

 which she will follow may not be pleasing to persons im- 

 bued with romantic feelings, yet she is only obeying a wise 



