B9 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



loud response, in a rolling- gobble of rapidly succes- 

 sive notes, as if with the design of emitting the last 

 as soon as the first, much in the same manner as 

 the tame turkey when he responds to any unusual or 

 frequently repeated noise, but not with the spreading 

 tail and strutting gait as when fluttering around the 

 hens on the ground, or practising similar movements 

 in the morning on the branches of the roost trees. 

 When their numbers are considerable, the woods 

 from one end to the other, sometimes for many miles, 

 resound with this singular hubbub, continued from 

 the roosting places in alternate responses for about 

 an hour. All then becomes still again, till at the 

 rising of the sun they leap down in silence from 

 their roost trees, and begin to strut about with ex- 

 panded tails and drooping wings. 



When the call-note of the hen turkey ascends from 

 the ground, all the cocks in the neighbourhood im- 

 mediately fly towards the spot. The moment they 

 reach it, whether they perceive her or not, they erect 

 their spreading tails, and throw the head backwards 

 between the shoulders, which are at the same time 

 shrugged up; they distend the comb and wattles, 

 depress their wings with a quivering motion and a 

 rustling sound, strutting the while with great pom- 

 posity, and ejecting from the lungs successive puffs 

 of air. At short intervals they may be seen to stop 

 short, listening and looking all about ; but whether 

 they descry the female or not, they resume their 

 strutting and puffing, moving with as much celerity 

 as the nature of their gait and their notions of cere- 

 mony seem to admit. Should the males, during such 

 movements, encounter each other, as often happens, 

 furious battles ensue, which are only terminated by 

 the flight or the death of the vanquished, and many 

 lives are thus lost. " I have often," says Audubon, 

 " been much diverted while watching two males in 



