58 WILD TURKEY. 



authors, who have mistaken the Curassow for it. In Canada, and 

 the now densely peopled parts of the United States, wild turkeys 

 were formerly very abundant, but like the Indian and buffalo, 

 they have been compelled to yield to the destructive ingenuity of 

 the white settlers, often wantonly exercised, and seek refuge in 

 the remotest part of the interior. Although they relinquish their 

 native soil with slow and reluctant steps, yet such is the rapidity 

 with which settlements are extended, and condensed over the 

 surface of this country, that we may anticipate a day, at no dis- 

 tant period, when the hunter will seek the wild turkey in vain. 



The wooded parts of Arkansaw, Louisiana, Tennessee, and 

 Alabama ; the unsettled portions of the State of Ohio, Kentucky, 

 Indiana, and Illinois ; the vast expanse of territory north-west of 

 these States, on the Mississippi and Missouri, as far as the forests 

 extend, are more abundantly supplied than any other parts of the 

 union, with this valuable game, which forms an important part of 

 the subsistence of the hunter and traveller in the wilderness. It 

 is not probable that the range of this bird extends to, or beyond 

 the Rocky Mountains. The Mandan Indians, who, afew years ago, 

 visited the city of Washington, considered the turkey one of the 

 greatest curiosities they had seen, and prepared a skin of one to 

 carry home for exhibition. 



The wild turkeys do not confine themselves to any particular 

 kind of food. They eat maize, all sorts of berries, fruits, grasses, 

 beetles, and, even, tadpoles, young frogs, and lizards, are occasion- 

 ally, found in their crops ; but where the pecan nut is plenty, they 

 prefer that fruit to any other nourishment ; their more general 

 predilection is, however, for the acorn, on which they rapidly 

 fatten. Where an unusually profuse crop of acorns is produced, 

 in a particular section of country, great numbers of turkeys are 

 enticed from their ordinary haunts, in the surrounding districts. 

 About the beginning of October, while the mast still remains on 

 the trees, they assemble in flocks, and direct their course to the 

 rich, bottom lands. At this season, they are observed in great 

 numbers on the Ohio, and Mississippi ; the time of this irruption is 

 known, to the Indians, by the name of the turkey month. The 

 males, usually termed gobblers, associate in parties, numbering 

 from ten to a hundred, and seek their food apart from the females ; 

 whilst the latter either move about, singly, or with their young, 

 then nearly two-thirds grown, or in company with other females 

 and their families, form troops, sometimes consisting of 70 or 80 

 individuals, all of whom are intent on avoiding the old males, who, 

 whenever opportunity offers, attack and destroy the young, by 



