THE TURKEY 135 



frequently alarmed, are wary and cunning. Some 

 of these will answer to the call without advancing 

 a step, and thus defeat the speculations of the hun- 

 ter, who must avoid making any movement, inasmuch 

 as a single glance of a turkey may defeat his hopes 

 of decoying them. By imitating the cry of the bar- 

 red owl (Strix nebulosa), the hunter discovers many 

 on their roosts, as they will reply hy a gobble to 

 every repetition of this sound, and can thus be ap- 

 proached with certainty about daylight, and easily 

 killed. 



" Wild turkeys are very tenacious of their feeding 

 grounds, as well as of the trees on which they have 

 once roosted. Flocks have been known to resort to 

 one spot for a succession of years, and to return af- 

 ter a distant migration in search of food. Their 

 roosting place is mostly on a point of land, jutting 

 into a river, where there are large trees. When they 

 have collected at the signal of a repeated gobbling, 

 they silently proceed towards their nocturnal abodes, 

 and perch near each other : from the number some- 

 times congregated in one place, it would seem to be 

 the common rendezvous of the whole neighbourhood. 

 But no position, however secluded or difficult of ac- 

 cess, can secure them from the attacks of the artful 

 and vigilant hunter, who, when they are all quietly 

 perched for the night, takes a stand previously chosen 

 by daylight, and, when the rising moon enables him 

 to take sure aim, shoots them down at leisure, and 

 0V carefully singling out those on the lower branches 



