258 DOMESTIC AJS^IMALS. 



varies from ten to fifteen. While the gradual addition of egg to egg is 

 going on, the hen displays surprising instinctive caution. On leaving 

 her charoje, she is careful to cover the whole with dry leaves, so artfully 

 disposedas to render it difficult, even for one who has watched her 

 movements, to find the nest ; and on returning to it she varies her rout, 

 scarcely ever returning to it twice by the same course. Hence it is 

 mostly by accident that the nest of the hen is discovered. It not 

 unfrequently happens that several hens associate together and form a 

 common nest, probably for mutual aid and assistance, and rear their 

 broods together. Audubon says that he once found three hens sitting 

 on forty-two eggs. In such cases one of the females at least is ever 

 on guard, no raven or crow then daring to invade the nest. While 

 in the act of incubation, the hen is not readily driven from her nest by 

 the appearance of danger. A person walking carelessly along as if taking 

 no particular notice, may pass a nest within five or six paces, the female 

 crouching low to avoid observation; but, as Mr. Audubon has ascertained, 

 if a person make his approach in a stealthy searching manner, she 

 will quit it while he is yet thirty yards distant, and assuming a stately 

 gait, will move away, uttering every now and then a clucking note, 

 probably hoping by this means to draw off the intruder and baffle his 

 search. The same writer says that the hen seldom or never abandons 

 her nest if it has been discovered by man, but that if a snake or any 

 other animal has sucked any of the eggs, she leaves it altogether. Under 

 such circumstances, or when the eggs have been removed, she seeks the 

 male, and recommences tlie preparation of another nest ; but, as a rule, 

 she lays only a single batch of eggs during the season. When the eggs 

 are on the eve of hatching, the female will not leave her nest under any 

 circumstances while life remains ; she will even allow an inclosure to be 

 made around her, and thus be, as it were, imprisoned, rather than seek 

 her own safety by flight. 



Before leaving the nest with her young brood, the female shakes 

 herself, adjusts her plumage, and appears roused to the exigencies 

 of the occasion ; she glances upward and around her, in the apprehen- 

 sion of enemies, and as she moves cautiously along, keeps her brood 

 close about her; her first excursion is generally to a little distance 

 only from the nest, to which she returns with her brood at night. Sub- 

 sequently they wander to a greater distance, the hen leading her charge 

 over dry undulating grounds, as if aware of the danger of damp and 

 humid spots. Wet, indeed, is fatal to young turkeys while covered 

 only with down ; hence, in very rainy seasons the brood becomes greatly 

 thinned, for the young, if once completely wetted, seldom recover; 

 their vital energies sink under the abstraction of caloric during evapor- 

 ation. 



At the age of a fortnight, the young birds begin to use their wings ; 

 liitherto they have rested on the ground, but now they begin to roost on 

 the low branch of some large tree, crowding close to each side of the 

 mother, and sheltered beneath her broad wings. They now wander 

 about more freely, visiting the glades and open lands bordering the 

 woods, in search of wild strawberries and other fruits, grasshoppers, the 

 larvee of ants and other insects ; and roll themselves in the sand and 



