90 OUR DOMESTIC FOWLS. 



wantonly exercised, and seek refuge in the 

 remotest parts of the interior. Although they 

 relinquish their native soil with slow and reluc- 

 tant steps, yet such is the rapidity Mith which 

 settlements are extended and condensed over 

 the surface of this country, that we may 

 anticipate a day at no distant date, when the 

 hunter will seek the wild turkey in vain." 

 From Audubon we learn that the unsettled 

 states of the Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and 

 Indiana, an immense extent of country to the 

 north-west of these distwcts, upon the Missis- 

 sippi and Missouri, and the vast regions 

 drained by these rivers, from their confluence 

 to Louisiana, including the wooded parts of 

 Arkansas, Tennessee, and Alabama, are the 

 most plentifully supplied with this magni6cent 

 bird. It is less plentiful in Georgia and vhe 

 Carolinas, — becomes still scarcer in Virginia 

 and Pennsylvania, and is now very rarely seen 

 to the eastward of the last-mentioned states. 



"The wild turkeys do not confine them- 

 selves to any particular food ; they eat maize, 

 all sorts of berries, fruits, grasses, beetles, and 

 even tadpoles ; young frogs and lizards are 

 occasionally found in their crops ; but where 

 the pecan nut is plentiful, they prefer that 



