INCUBATION RANGE. 85 



with her different tones and inflections of voice, ex- 

 pressive of her various feelings. 



The above remarks, however, of Buflbn, are to be 

 received with a due degree of circumspection, since 

 I have known unsteady sitters among turkeys, and 

 however affectionate, the turkey Jien, from her na- 

 tural heedlessness and stupidity, is the most careless 

 of mothers, and being a great traveller herself, will 

 drag her brood over field, heath, or bog, never cast- 

 ing a regard behind her to call in her straggling 

 chicks, nor .stopping whilst she has one left to follow 

 her. She differs beside, in this particular, from the 

 industrious common hen ; she never scratches for 

 her chicks, leaving them entirely to their own in- 

 stinct and their own industry. On these accounts, 

 where turkeys are bred to any extent, and are per- 

 mitted to range, it is necessary to allow them a 

 KEEPER. The turkey hen is nevertheless extremely 

 vigilant and quick in the discovery of any birds of 

 prey in the air, which may endanger her brood, and 

 has the faculty, by a peculiar cry, of communicating 

 her alarm, on which the chicks immediately seek 

 shelter, or squat themselves upon the earth : but 

 she will not, from her timid nature, fight for her 

 brood as the common hen will. The domesticated, 

 as well as the wild turkey, runs with considerable 

 speed. 



The CHICKS must be withdrawn from the nest as 

 soon as hatched, and kept very warm. It is a very 

 old and very general custom, to plunge them in- 

 stantly into cold water, and then give them each a 

 whole pepper-corn, with a small tea-spoonful of 



