TURKEY. 



stationed. One night we encamped near an immense 

 turkey roost. Four or five of the men went into the 

 roost after dark, and, though armed only with the mus- 

 quetoon, a most miserable weapon, bagged eighty-two 

 birds in a couple of hours. This was in earlier times, 

 before hunting had become a trade with so many persons. 

 At the present time there is scarcely a portion of the 

 country in which the turkeys have not had experience of 

 the danger of having white men near their roosts, and, 

 unless the birds be much scattered, there is, even in the 

 most unfrequented localities, little hope of getting more 

 than six or ten shots before all have taken to flight. In 

 places where they are much shot at on the roost, they 

 become extremely shy and difficult to approach, flying 

 off to the hills at the first sound of the hunter in the 

 thicket. Under these circumstances they become much 

 more difficult to kill by night than by day. 



For some few years past a very considerable number 

 of wild turkeys have been sent from the plains to the 

 eastern markets alive. These are caught in pens by a 

 process too old and well known to need description, and 

 taken in coops to the nearest railroad station. By the 

 time these birds reach their destination they are, through 

 fright and starvation, the mere shadows of their former 

 selves. I have, within the last few years, met several 

 gentlemen, whose highest ambition was to be thought 

 epicurean, whose verdict was unanimous that the western 

 wild turkey was unfit for human food. They had evi- 

 dently been dining upon some of these unfortunate 

 anatomical specimens. If they will make a trip west 

 and try the bird in its natural condition, I think I can 

 guarantee an entire change of opinion. 



Wherever civilisation has not exterminated them, 

 wild turkeys are to be found from the Atlantic to the 

 Eocky Mountains, and from the Gulf of Mexico to 

 about latitude 44 N. They have even crossed the 

 southern range of the Eocky Mountains, some of the 



