J22 THE POULTRY-BOOK. 



great fatigue, and that their condition will be anything but 

 benefited thereby. 



It will always be recollected, in reckoning the advantages 

 with the expense attendant on the rearing of these birds, that 

 until you want to fatten them for sale, or your own consump- 

 tion, you need be at no pains relative to their food, as they are 

 quite able to provide for themselves, being in this respect supe- 

 rior to any other of our domestic fowl. In thus readily provid- 

 ing for themselves, they are also greatly assisted by the easy 

 character of their appetite grass, herbs, corn, berries, fruit, 

 insects, and reptiles ; in short, hardly anything coming amiss to 

 them. 



Audubon says, that, in their native forests, ' they cannot 

 be said to confine themselves to any particular kind of food, 

 although they seem to prefer the peccan nut and winter grape 

 to any other ; and where these foods abound, are found in the 

 greatest numbers. They eat grass and herbs of various kinds, 

 corn, berries, and'friiits of all descriptions. I have even 

 found beetles, tadpoles, and small lizards, in their crops.' 

 Ornith. Biog., 1. ii. A favorite repast of this bird in its native 

 forests is said also to be in the seed of a kind of nettle, and at 

 another season a small red acorn, on which latter food they soon 

 become so fat that they cannot fly, and are easily run down by 

 dogs. 



It may not be generally known, that there are many sorts 

 of food which, though nutritious and highly salutary as con- 

 cerns other fowl, are little short of downright poison to turkeys. 

 Amongst others, I may enumerate vetches or tares, marrowfat 

 peas, and most sorts of pulse, which are little less deleterious 

 to them than such well-known poisons as hemlock, foxglove, 

 or henbane. 



I think I have now afforded my readers not only all the 

 information relative to the management of turkeys that I have 



