WILD TURKEY HUNTING. 11 
its habits, and its absence from any of its accustomed — 
haunts, is indicative of its total extermination from the 
place where it was once familiar. 
At present, the traveller in the “ far west,” while 
wending his solitary way through the trackless forests, 
sometimes very unexpectedly meets a drove of turkeys 
in his pathway, and when his imagination suddenly 
warms with the thought that he is near the poultry-yard 
of some hospitable farmer, and while his wearied limbs 
seem to labor with extra pain, as he thinks of the couch 
compared with the cold ground as a resting-place, he 
hears a sudden whizzing in the air, a confused noise, 
and his seeming evidences of civilization and comfort 
vanish as the wild turkey disappears, giving him by 
their precipitate flight, the most painful evidence that he 
is far from the haunts of men and home. 
Turkey hunting is a favorite pursuit with all who 
can practise it with success, but it is a bird liberally 
provided by nature with the instinct of self-preservation, 
and is, therefore, seldom found off its guard. Skilful 
indeed must be the shot that stops the turkey in its 
flight of alarm, and yet its wings, as with the partridge 
and quail, are little used for the purposes of escaping 
from danger. It is on their speed that they rely for 
safety, and we doubt if the best hounds could catch 
them in a race, even if the turkey’s wings were clipped 
so that they could not resort to height to elude their 
pursuers. So little indeed does the bird depend upon 
