344 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



gobblers have large wattles, that are nearly always white. 

 In the spring, an ardent gobbler's wattles are red. 

 Gobblers are always armed with spurs, and ornamented 

 with beards, varying in length according to age, the 

 former sometimes measuring an inch and a quarter long 

 and the latter twelve inches. Hens sometimes have 

 beards, but they are not very common; on my last turkey- 

 hunt, of the three hens bagged, two wore beards. I have 

 seen a few gobblers in my long experience that had more 

 than one beard one that had three. In weight, the wild 

 and domestic turkeys are about the same, the tendency 

 of the former being to grow slightly heavier with the 

 gobblers, and with the hens lighter. Sixteen pounds for 

 gobblers and eight for hens, I believe to be a fair average 

 in weight. Still it is not uncommon to find gobblers that 

 will pull the scales to twenty pounds, and sometimes 

 but rarely one will be brought in that will weigh twenty- 

 five, six, or seven. I myself killed in one day two that 

 weighed tw^enty-five and twenty -seven, respectively. A 

 friend of mine in the Indian Territory tells of killing one 

 that tipped the beam at twenty-eight; and Prof. J. L. 

 Smith, one of the Texas pioneers, and one of the most 

 truthful men I ever knew, told me of one he killed that 

 weighed even thirty pounds. 



The wild turkey is a much hardier and stronger f owl 

 than those we rear at home, and so the gobblers put 

 more vim into their gobbling and strutting. How the 

 gobbler makes that thunder-like sound when he struts, I 

 do not know, but am certain that it is not by scraping 

 his wings on the ground, since he struts as loudly in a 

 tree, where his wings touch nothing, and where he can 

 not walk at all, as when on the ground. I am also sure 

 that his crop, puffed full of air, is an important factor, 

 since no turkey ever struts without this. It is easy to 

 distinguish a fat gobbler from a poor one, or an old one 



