TURKEY SHOOTING. 299 



sician for his amatory notes, by what the Turkeys, coulJ they 

 reason, would doubtless consider a well-merited and expiatory 

 death. 



The fairness of these gentry in the way of sporting, may be 

 estimated by the following observation, quoted, like the above, 

 from Mr. Audubon : — " During winter, many of our rettHiunters 

 shoot them by moonlight, on the roosts, where these birds will 

 frequently stand a repetition of the reports of a rifle, although 

 they would fly from the attack of an owl, or even, perhaps, from 

 his presence." The italics of the word real are Mr. Audubon's, 

 not mine, and I scarcely know what he means to imply by the 

 term, unless that the fellows whom he so denominates, shoot 

 for the worth of the game, not for the sport, and are, in fact, 

 what I should call real poachers, and utterly unworthy of the 

 name of hunter, much less sportsman, with both which names, 

 thank heaven ! some prestige of fair play and sense of honor is 

 still connected ; were it not so, as well be at once the butcher ; 

 and where the difference between the greenwood and the sham- 

 bles ? 



The best thing that can be said in defence of such practices, 

 is, that except its flavor and its beauty, the Wild Turkey has no 

 game quality about it. It sneaks through the giass or bushes 

 with what Mr. Audubon picturesquely terms " a dangling strag- 

 gling way of running, which, awkward as it may seem, enables 

 them to outstrip any other animal." The same gentleman ob- 

 serves, that he has often pursued them for hours in succession, 

 on a good horse, without being able to compel them to take 

 wing, and has ultimately given it up in despair. 



The nearest approach to fairness, or sport, that is ever at- 

 tempted with regard to these birds, is to train a fast yelping 

 cur, or terrier, to run into them on full cry, flush them, and 

 after forcing them to rise in different directions, chase them, 

 still yelping, to the trees, on which they alight, and out of which 

 the hunter picks them one by one with his rifle, or BB shot. 



Such sport is all very well for those gentlemen who like it ; 

 I, for one, am always delighted to see a Wild Turkey on the 



