TURKEY HUNTING. 17 



and fallen to the ground, then a russet persimmon or a 

 choice pecan-nut shaken down by last night's wind. 

 Their leader casts his eye from side to side, scanning 

 everything that moves. Now a caressing love-note is 

 uttered to his favorite hen ; then, drawing himself to his 

 full height, he gives a glance of scrutiny into the woods 

 ahead of him, where the little pine trees open an ex- 

 tended vision. Passing a rotten stump, with a stroke of 

 his stalwart leg and claws he tears down the rotten bark. 

 A half inclination of the head, more graceful than that of 

 any gentleman, defers to the nearest hen a curd-white grub 

 that has rolled out from the wood, and with a low cluck 

 of acknowledgment she picks it up. !N"ow with one foot 

 half raised, he searches for the cause of a sudden noise. 

 Ah ! it was only that opossum, and the turkeys care little 

 for him when they are in a flock together, and now in 

 passing he leaps up and catches a beetle that was crawl- 

 ing in a bush above him, now a may-apple, then a spider 

 or plethoric tadpole stranded in the hollow of the reced- 

 ing waters, are all espied by these wandering gipsies, and 

 immediately appropriated. At length they reach the 

 banks of a river; there is a little hurry among the 

 young hens. They don't like large streams : there are 

 alligators and garfish in the water, and wild-cats and 

 eagles prowling around the banks, yet the river is to be 

 crossed, and they are not half so good at flying as they 

 are at running. Indeed they would walk round the 

 head of it, had they not learned that all Florida rivers 

 connect, in some way, one with another. As it is, they 



