22 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
mistress, and he gallantly flies down from his low perch, 
gives his body a swaggering motion, and utters a dis- 
tinct and prolonged c/wck—significant of both surprise 
and joy. : 
On the instant, the dead twigs near by crack beneath 
a heavy tread, and he starts off under the impression 
that he is caught; but the meanderings of some rumi- 
nating cow inform him of his mistake. Composing 
himself, he listens—ten minutes since he challenged, 
when a low cluck in the distance reaches his ears. 
Now, our gobbler is an old bird, and has several times, 
as if by a miracle, escaped from harm with his life; he 
has grown very cunning indeed. 
He will not roost two successive nights upon the 
same tree, so that daylight never exposes him to the 
hunter, who has hidden himself away in the night to 
kill him in the morning’s dawn. 
He never gobbles without running a short distance 
at least, as if alarmed at the noise he makes himself—he 
presumes every thing is suspicious and dangerous, and 
his experience has heightened the instinct. 
Twice, when young, was he coaxed within gun-shot : 
but got clear by some fault of the percussion-caps—after 
that, he was fooled by an idle schoolboy, who was a kind 
of ventriloquist, and would have been slain, had not the 
urchin overloaded his gun. 
Three times did he come near being killed by heed- 
lessly wandering with his thoughtless playfellows. 
