10 TUEKEY CULTUEE. 



May the day never come when it shall be said the noble 

 Wild turkey roams my native mountains no more. 



THE WOOING OF THE WILD TUKKEY. 



BY J. M. MURPHY 



The males commence wooing as early as February in 

 some of the extreme Southern States ; but March is the 

 opening of the love season throughout the country, and April 

 the month in which it reaches its highest development. The 

 males may then be heard calling to the females from every 

 direction, until the woods ring with their loud and liquid 

 cries, which are commenced long ere the sun appears 

 above the horizon, and continue for hours with the stead- 

 iest persistency. As both sexes roost apart at this period, 

 the hens avoid answering the gobblers for some time, but 

 they finally become less obdurate, and coyly return the 

 call. When the males hear this, all within hearing respond 

 promptly and vehemently, uttering notes similar to those 

 which the domestic gobblers do when they hear an unu- 

 sual sound. If the female answering the call is on the 

 ground, the males fly to her and parade before her with 

 all the pompous strutting that characterizes the family. 

 They spread and erect their tails, depress their wings 

 with a quivering motion and trail them along the ground, 

 and draw the head back on the shoulders, as if to increase 

 their dignity and importance ; then wheel, and march, and 

 swell, and gobble, as if they were trying to outdo each 

 other in airs and graces. The female, however, pays little 

 attention to these ceremonious parades, and demurely 

 looks on while the rivals for her affection try to outdo one 

 another in playing the gallant and dandy. When the strut- 

 ting and gobbling fail to win her, the candidates for mat- 

 rimony challenge each other to mortal combat, and which- 

 ever is successful in the contest walks away with her in the 

 most nonchalant manner. The easy indifference of the 



