762 IVild Turkey- Shooting. 



shoot them by moonlight. Not being afraid of cattle, they are easily 

 approached after dark by a man with a cow-bell tied on his arm. It 

 is now broad daylight, and as we are as near as we can get without 

 frightening him, let us conceal ourselves until he flies down. He is 

 roosting low ; a fat gobbler does not like to fly high. 



Now he alights on the ground, and stands like a bronze statue 

 looking for some lurking foe. We now take our yelper, and give a 

 few sharp yelps ; he hears the call, and, spreading his tail like a fan, 

 drops his gray flight feathers until they tip the earth, struts and 

 gobbles. He is coming leisurely and cautiously toward us ; now a 

 hen yelps on the other side, and he pauses between the two calls, 

 then struts and gobbles again. The hen is impatient for the caresses 

 of her gallant, and runs to him ; the others gather around, and with 

 his harem he wanders off to his feeding-grounds, regardless of the 

 seductive calls of the hen left behind. We hear him gobbling in the 

 distance, and follow very cautiously, taking advantage of every 

 thicket to screen our approach. 



We call again, and hear in reply, instead of a gobble, a bungling 

 attempt at a hen-call, made by some backwoodsman. The gobbler 

 had detected the fraud and left. Fearing we might be mistaken for 

 a turkey and shot at, as once happened to the writer, we approach 

 the woodsman, and while talking with him hear the gobbler a long 

 way off, and immediately set out after him, our well-trained pointer 

 creeping at our heels. The morning has passed, and the turkeys have 

 left the bottoms and sought the ridges, where the leaves have been 

 burnt off by the farmers that the grass may grow early for pasturage. 

 In the burnt woods it is difficult to approach very near, as all the 

 undergrowth is destroyed ; and this is the place he selects to spend 

 his nooning, where he can pick the tender grass and gather bugs 

 and grasshoppers with no fear of being surprised. The hens, one 

 by one, have stolen off to their nests, and now he only gobbles at 

 long intervals, but will continue strutting occasionally all day. 

 Getting his location, we slip carefully around a ridge, and reaching 

 a point without being seen, near enough to be heard by him, give a 

 cluck and gulp like a hen that has just left her nest. Having caught 

 the note of a hen in the morning, we imitate her voice. This is one 

 of the perfections in the art of turkey-calling ; no two leaves of the 

 forest are alike, nor are any two voices of birds or men alike. 



