234 ON THE FEONTIEB. 



in a country abounding with these birds it may require 

 many evenings' watching before a roost is discovered : 

 when it is, word is brought into camp, and the prepara- 

 tions made. Sufficiently long before midnight to allow of 

 getting to the roost by that time, the hunters are awakened. 

 A steaming can of hot strong cafg now is ready for each 

 of them, and a snack of refreshment. This is quickly 

 despatched, and they sally forth. On arriving at the roost 

 the hunters scatter out under the tall trees, in the upper 

 boughs of which the game is sleeping, and each picks out 

 his turkey. The first object of the hunter is then to 

 " moon his turkey " that is to say, to get a partial turkey- 

 eclipse of the moon by bringing his eyes and that bird 

 and luminary in line; this being accomplished, he brings 

 his rifle to his shoulder, pointing it horizontally in a direc- 

 tion which would meet at right angles a perpendicular from 

 the ground to the bird. In this position the moonlight 

 falls full on the barrel of his rifle and lights up its sights. 

 The hunter draws the front sight well down in the notch 

 of the hind one until he gets his " bead," then he carefully 

 raises his weapon until the shadow of the turkey falls upon 

 it. As the rifle-sights darken, the hair-trigger is touched, 

 and if the sportsman's nerve is steady, his eye and finger 

 true, and his rifle what it ought to be, a prize well worth the 

 exercise of his skill will drop, with a heavy thud, at his feet. 

 The amount of sport necessarily depends on many 

 circumstances, which will suggest themselves to the 

 reader; but I will give the result of my last day's or 

 rather night's turkey-roosting in Wet-mountain Valley 

 because it is as nearly an average night's sport of the 



